Friend Visit and Rest

Two day weekends are far too short. So not cool.

Anyway, one of my friends from Bucknell, Adam is thinking of going to grad school out here in LA. He sent me an email awhile ago saying he was going to visit, so Josh and I agreed to give him a tour on Saturday. Granted, our tour of LA really meant a tour of things near LA since outside of the city is much nicer than inside. It turned out Kearah's high school friend was also newly arrived in LA too, so she came along for the tour. We started out with the Santa Monica Pier. Its funny because Maggie and Adam both seem to LIKE the city, which is in contrast to my total lack of ability to appreciate the cement world. I need trees and the normal colored sky and clean air I guess. Plus, my tolerance for LA is going down the longer I am here. I was sick (STILL, yay polluted ocean) and was having achilles tendon problems, but I managed to walk to the pier and back anyway. Soon after, Josh decided we needed to escape the city world of Santa Monica and head north/west. After stopping at the famous Howe's Market in Malibu, the four of us wandered around Leo Carrillo beach. Just being on the coast is a nice relief. We saw a stranded seal pup that has since been rescued. Apparently El Nino is forcing the fish away from the tropics and young seals are starving. The seal we saw ended up in an ocean mammal rehab place where they feed them and teach them to hunt. Our next stop was Neptune's Net, followed by a "secret" beach that I absolutely love. The awesome staircase down was overgrown, making it even more beautiful.

The last stop was Malibu Creek State Park for a hike. For some reason it didn't occur to us to bring climbing gear.

Without planning to, we ended up at the back climbing area. We also toured the front walls and enjoyed scrambling over the rocks to see more rocks!

By the end of the day, ocean pollution sickness was taking over and my body wasn't really cooperating. We dropped Maggie off, then Adam at the airport. It was fun to see him again and hang out with Kearah's friend! Worth putting sickness aside for a little bit and enjoying the outdoors without pushing my body too hard. In the end, we had a really good time!

Sunday was a rest day so I slept in. There was a little gym climbing and then church like usual. The last few weekends have been recovery weekends from being sick, so I'm hoping that trend will end soon and we'll get out of the city more often!