Yucca Bloom Forest

Today I went to Redbox, no, not the kiosk to rent dvds, but the trail high up in the mountains of the Los Angeles National Forest. (insert bad joke sound here. wah wah or ba dum pump)

We were yearning for nature, not the nature that puts you in a car on the pch during a beach holiday in which your one arm gets sunburnt as you inch slowly towards your goal. We wanted the nature on the other side of LA the one that was the anti-thesis of the carlocked beaches, we wanted the mountains, we wanted the desert. So we drove 20 minutes to the forest, and we hardly passed another car on the way. The Angeles Crest Highway winds its way straight up into the sky, through rock formations and atmosphere. You pass people on bikes with strong calf muscles inching their way through mountain passes. Those people hardly enjoyed the view, they were determined to keep going and hopefully not look down because it was a long way down, my white knuckling the passenger side handle going unnoticed.  I always have these thoughts of speeding through windy mountain roads and the brakes failing, those are the things I think about as I am griping something hard and stationary. Morbid thoughts of my mortality that sometimes prevent me from enjoying the view. I tried concentrating on the Yucca Booms covering the mountain sides, many the sizes of pine trees and I had never been that close to one.

We intended to go to Switzer Falls, but it seemed like everyone else wanted to go there too so after a 10 to 15 minute wait for a parking spot that would probably never come we headed on to Redbox, where surprisingly there wasn't a lot of people. Redbox is a  great hike, a lot of straight down, but not steep, winding trails that go a little up a little down, eventually leading to a stream. We passed tons of Yucca in full bloom within feet and inches from me and I feel now that I can finally check this off my list.  They are that beautiful in person.

There were giant thistles, corpses of burnt out trees from fires, bearded tongue, birds singing, the smell of leaves and flowers. We hardly passed a single person, but when we did they were extremely friendly.

It was exactly what we were looking for and the anti-thesis of what we knew would be waiting for us up the pch.

But what goes down must come up and the hike retracing our steps was a bit hard on the legs and lungs. .

We heard many lizards racing through the woods, loudly, I got a picture of this one, who was probably frightened from T scaring it my way so one of us could get a photo.

All in all the hike was two hours, slightly stretched out for breath and a reluctance to go back to the land of sound and bustle.

I would like to say that we all made it out alive, but we actually lost a TGT buddy on our way home. After a gallant effort and safe distance from the mountain passes, we did indeed lose our breaks, at a slow speed a SUV slowing our trajectory finally putting the nail in the coffin of Ts car.

Everyone is ok.

I miss the ocean when I go to sleep-Broad/Lechuza

It had been a really long time since I had gone tide pooling, very close to a year and a half when I had visitors from Minneapolis visiting.  I have been tidepooling a handful of times, as you have seen on this blog, often visiting Malibu Lagoon. I like Malibu, but I was feeling a little been there done that and thought it would be nice to try some place different. I asked a friend who is a geologist/surfer for recommendations because who would know more about the ocean than that person. He recommended Broad Beach, a little further up the Malibu coast's 27 miles of coastline. 

Broad Beach is a little harder to find and a bit daunting, because although there are public access points to the beach they are hidden between rich people's houses and even though those access points are in fact public, the residents may try to dissuade you, but you have a right to be there, so they really can't do anything about it. We tried going through a few people's yards first before finding beach access, but where we found access was actually Lechuza Beach.

We made it there just as lowtide was happening. When the tide receeded, it didn't reveal pools like the other places we had been, but rather revealed tide boulders. Hidden in and around those black jaggedy rocks were all kinds of things I wasn't expecting. Attached to the lower parts of these boulders were dozens of sea stars having a sea star orgy (pictured above) I found something new (pictured right) which looked like some sort of alien armor in a sci-fy movie. It has a fancy Latin name I am sure, but it is more commonly called "Pork Sponge" I wanted to touch it, but didn't. I do want to re-name it though, something a lot cooler than Pork Sponge.

 

There are a few small caves and arches carved out of the rocks not a lot of room to walk around in. T spotted a few fossils and pre-historic tide creatures because she is good at stuff like that.

As we walked around the boulders we heard clicking clicking clicking and when we looked closer in the small canyons in the rocks we saw 10s of little crabs hiding clicking their claws, most likely hiding from the birds that hang out during low tide to see what they can come up with for an after lunch snack. The crabs would squinch up a bit more as our shadows passed them. I wish my camera could have caught the amazing reddish pink of its claws.

I paparazzied the heck out of them, but very few pictures turned out. This one is my favorite.

This was a great recommendation and I hope to find more new places, in hopes of finally seeing an octopus.

Bus Blog-When there isn't mace you can always use exclamation

I am spending more time east, taking the train up to Sunset and Vermont or to Pershing station. If I remember correctly I was on my way to see the Ukulele Orchestra of the Western Hemisphere (UOWH) play at El Cid.

Cast of characters:
You may remember a bus blog a year or so back on how LA welcomed me back into her crazy arms by a woman who speaks in tongues, but sometimes in Nahau, and told me to “never give up”  I want to let you know that she was there this evening that I can’t remember when I took place, but think it was to see some ukulele music. She will hence to be called Woman 1

Woman 2: Someone I hadn't seen before, a worse for wear lady of the night, with painted on red shiny jeans a tank top both on her frame and in her hair.

Scene:
I go down the down escalator, walk across the platform and land myself in the middle of a bum fight. I recognize speaking in tongues lady by the way she says devil. A long drawn out way like a Coupe DeVille.

"DeVille, you are the DeVille" She screams at the second woman.

I walked into the middle of it, I am sure it went on for a while, and Woman 2 was at her limited of being name called. Woman 1 moves to another bench where she can continue her rant at a cowardly distance. The distance isn't far enough because Woman 2 waltzes over as fast as her constrained legs will take her and releases an onslaught of cheap perfume at Woman 1almost completely missing her and landing square in the eye of a man innocently reading a book. He is calm, says nothing, but begins to pace, tears stream down his red and freckled face. Instead of Woman 1 apologizing to him for getting him in the middle of this altercation she follows his pacing going on and on about how the other woman was a DeVille and how he should now be on her side.

One should be able to ride the bus, without getting a shot of exclamation in the eye.

Co+nun+drum

I think the hardest part about not writing is knowing where to start.

I have been a lot of places, seen a lot of things, experienced a lot, but where do I start after an almost 2 month absence? Do I start with the sea and move my way to the desert and dip south for a weekend? Do I start with my check off list and let you know that it has, disappointingly gone nowhere, chronologically forwards or backwards, with vague notions of what I remember? How about with last night? 

No, where I am starting is bus blog.

But before I start there, to sum up my time in short, when I haven't been doing all the things that I am going to write about next, I have been dancing around my little tree house in k-town, in my f-it I don't have a roommate attire, to this song by a band I saw last night. 

Next up.... my re-encounter with the woman who told me never to give up