We completed two fabulous camping trips so far. On our Portland anniversary (June 1) we camped at Malibu Creek. The weekend started off a little rocky. First it took us a ridiculously long time to get ourselves packed in the morning. It seems i have forgotten what we needed to take with us, and was struggling to organize. When we finally made it to the park it was already 2pm. Because it was so late, we were unable to get our previous site, or any other "good" site away from people. I felt so disproportionally disappointed, frustrated because we lost so much time, frazzled from getting ready so frantically, even though the spot we ended up with was entirely ok. We took a walk on the nearby trail, encountering a bunny, small grass meadow,
and followed a dried up river bed. By the time we came back to the site, it was getting late and dark, and shrimp pockets were a perfect fit for dinner. But then we discovered that i forgot our tea kettle!!! No tea time? Nooooooo!! I opted to try to boil water in our water bottle. It took a long time, but to C's surprise we succeeded, and was able to also use it to make coffee the next morning. After breakfast we headed out to the rock pools. It seemed much closer this time, perhaps because we already knew the road, i am not sure... When we got there, there was some excitement going on: the rangers were deployed in search for a missing teenager. We watched the commotion, then enjoyed the rock pools (and even dove off the rocks once), and had a lovely lunch. As we were leaving, we took a detour and hiked up to the Mash filming sight, which was kind of cool, even though neither one of us was ever a fan of the show. The place was surrounded by big hills and in the pre-sunset time was quite peaceful and free of people, for the most part. On the way back we spotted a family of deer, which C was able to photograph. What a lovely trip it turned out to be!
On our engagement anniversary we ventured to Point Mugu again. It was so nice to be there again, in the place of memories, remembering my parents being there with us, remembering ourselves. In preparation for the trip i located some biking maps, and we planned out a bike loop. We got to the campsite earlier this time, packing with a list was a little better. We were able to snag a good site, so i was happy! We had lunch of tuna wrappers, and this is when i noticed that i forgot to pack the frozen shrimps!!! Oh, no! We figured we would just go and find the nearest grocery store afterwords and get them, no big deal. So, after lunch we embarked on our biking adventure of the day, our loop, starting with the Sycamore Canyon trail, up the Hell hill, and back via Overlook fire road. Although i walked 99% of the Hell hill, C was able to bike some of it, which was impressive, because from my perspective, there is absolutely no way! But i found the first part of that trail very beautiful, especially the back portion right before the Hell Hill, Fox trail- something, if i remember right. I would definitely invest some time in doing that part again, and looping the other way back to Sycamore Trail. We felt the wind in our faces on our gentle ride downhill on the Overlook fire road, taking notice of the rocky wall where we hid a note two years ago. We were not sure if we found the exact location, but took a photo to confirm. Upon confirmation, wooohooo, it was the spot, as we have matching pictures from 5/28/2010 of me putting it here!!!
When we came back to our camp site after our bike loop and started setting up, we discovered that we forgot our sleeping bags!!! Oh, no!!! So, now we had no choice but to drive 1.5 hours back home to get them, and, the missing shrimp too. It was super funny to realize that even with a packing list, some stuff did not get packed. When we got to the house, i also realized that i didn't pack our pillows, or our toothbrushes. Wow! Then we drove our 1.5 back to the campground, and got back in time to have dinner before sunset! The next day we headed to explore the Serrano loop on foot. We started by driving to the end of Serrano rd, which is an abandoned road that comes downhill for a while and ends with a closed gate. Then what continues is the remains of the abandoned road, overgrown with vegetation, looking gloriously apocalyptic! The road continues down the valley, in the beautiful grass meadows, bypassing the burned down ranch (which we explored vigorously).
From there we struggled to find the loop trail. We were hoping a just do a small loop that we found on the maps, but the markings were old and not visible, and we ended up making our way on Serrano Canyon trail, which almost lead us back to the Sycamore Canyon road. The trail itself is shaded, cool and pleasant and winds its way inside a narrow canyon, around a seasonal creek. There were some nice wild tiger lilies on the way (this was my very first time seeing tiger lilies in the wild, my grandmother grew them back in the ol' country's summer home)
but also some poison ivy. We eventually turned back, when "sun started to touch the top of the trees", and made it back via almost erased loop trail that we were seeking. The hike was declared a success, and fining our van perfectly in tact, despite C's concerns, was definitely a happy ending.
What a beautiful adventure this was!
