Hiking and driving are both forms of travel, so I’m expanding this blog to include my hikes (mainly because driving has recently become uber expensive!).
A couple weeks ago I took a hike up through Red Rock Canyon. It is an offshoot of Temescal Canyon located in the hills between Malibu and Van Nuys. There’s a tiny art community, though heavily trafficked on weekends.
Just north of the community is a little dirt road that carves back through the cliffs to a small riverbed. A parking lot at the road’s end has been labeled as a state park. Pay $3, climb out, and hike on up into the hills.
The Canyon is aptly named as the cliffsides are all the dirty brown vermillion of stained sandstone.
Eventually the red rock gives way to the grit and gravel of top dirt and brush covers the mountain face.
Then, farther up near the peak, the red rock pokes back out. The cliffs are scalable this high up, though with no gear and worn down shoes, I decided not to climb the steep side.
I worked my way up to one of the high rocks and spent the next half hour meditating, not something I regularly do nor particularly know how to do, but the environment demanded some form of induced peace.
Then back down the rockface, through the brush, and onto the main trail, I retread my steps all the way back to the little dirt road, the artist community, and back into the clusterous muck of urban Los Angeles.
By the way, don’t forget to head over to Mr. Sisson’s health blog, for a dose of paleo diet goodness.
Funny little aside: Since I mentioned the $3.99/gallon gas last month, price has already gone up to $4.25. At this rate it will be $7 before the end of the year!
Anyway, today I was going to talk about the benefits of vitamins, or the benefits of vitamins online to be more specific, but I’ve switched my topic to Hiking trails.
When I first decided to develop washboard abs, I figured hiking was a good way to go about it. I’m more of a road man (as you might have figured out by this blog), but I’m not against hiking by any means. The only problem was, I thought all the hiking was hundreds of miles away from L.A. proper.
Not true. Turns out, there’s dozens of amazing hiking trails, right along the road between where I work and live. I live in Santa Monica and I work in Malibu, and Calabasas in between is the jumping point for every five mile hike that wonders through the mountains dividing L.A. from the valley.
And the mountains are beautiful. Waterfalls, creeks, lakes and ponds, and enough dry wood and fuel to start a forest fire twice a year, which is what happens. But the hikes are worth the potential risk. Most of the trails lead to lookout points at the tops of mountain. The lookouts are a blend of the majesty of nature and the might of the modern city, all sprawled out to gaze upon while you munch down some trail mix.
The price of gas has really squelched my future plans for road tripping. As much as I enjoy long drive through beautiful open country. I just can’t afford the 200 dollars in gas it takes to spend a day in the car.
Gas here in California is almost four dollars a gallon. It’s actually funny to watch the price squish against the four dollar ceiling. Gas stations usually vary on prices by about a dime, but right now every gas station within 20 miles of my house is at $3.99 and 9/10 per gallon. The stations are afraid to break four dollars, so they sit just below the line. So, my prediction is once the wave breaks, gas will jump from $3.99 all the way up to $4.20 or even $4.30 as stations have been sitting on the price for so long. And from there, who knows what the limit is. Some say it could go as high as $8 a gallon. That would essentially cripple my wages, since I drive 25 miles to and from work each day.
In other news, I’ve been reading up on orthorexia nervosa. Can’t say I’ve learned much about it, but the post I’ve linked to may inform you to a small degree. Also, I found this private eye search engine that helps to locate a person. Good luck doing that.
About a week ago I drove through Death Valley. The place was as barren as ever and chilly, even at sea level.
I meandered through the canyons and mountains for several hours.
BLAST!!!!
Something urgent just came up, so I have to wrap up this post (which was intended to be decadent, and poetic) into a few links and phrases.
First off, I’m currently promoting this weight loss shake and these omega 3 vitamins as part of an internet campaign I’m running. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I’m giving it a try.
Second, I’ve been doing a lot of reddit stuff recently. Reddit only lets you post an article once every 6 minutes, which sort of blows, but I guess the payoff is also bigger. Check out reddit if you get the chance, it’s a social networking site.
Next week I promise to have a better post!
Ack! Only a month after I bragged so much about never getting a ticket, and I get into my first accident!
It’s almost too painful to write about.
I was driving through Arizona when my car broke down in the middle of the night. All I had with me was a few changes of clothes and some multivitamins and omega 3 capsules. I paid a hundred bucks to have my car towed 3 miles and then I paid another 900 to have the alternater, tie rods, and tires fixed.
And after of that cash down the drain, I pull out of the Pep Boys and run right into a Chevy Pickup. I was only going 15mph, but my car is made of Fiberglass, so the bumper pretty much just shattered. If I was listing ways of how to relieve stress, this would not be on the list.
So anyway, I pop a couple antioxidant supplements, wait around for 30 days and get my car back, and I’m now over 2000 dollars in the hole for it. Oh well, the road giveth, and the road taketh away.
I love to drive and this blog catalogues my road experiences.
I turned 16 in March of 1998. I was living in a small town in southern Missouri, and I decided to take off toward Colorado to go snowboarding. I’d had my driver’s licence for less than a week. In fact, this was back before instant computerized identity, so I didn’t even have a driver’s licence card yet. I had a piece of paper verifying that I WOULD get a driver’s licence in 2-4 weeks.
I was pulled over three times on my way to Colorado. The first time, I was speeding through the Ozark mountains, and I passed a trap. A trap is a little town that decides to drop the speed limit on their stretch of road from 55 to 25. I caught the trap just in time to slam on my breaks, but the cop was right there, parked behind the sign, and he pulled me over. I was scared as hell, I didn’t want my newly earned freedom to be yanked away so quick, and I think the cop could tell and felt sorry for me. He let me off with a warning.
The second time I got pulled over, I accidentally pulled out onto a highway right in front of a cop chasing someone else for speeding. He said I “interfered” with “traffic” but let me off with a warning as well.
The third time was for driving without my headlights on at night. Anyone who has owned a firebird knows how easy this is to do. I was given a third warning for the day, and sent on my way.
Of course, I became rather paranoid from thereout of cop cars lurking behind every billboard and median. I thought every white car was a cop car. And this became a big problem, for once I reached Colorado, every car had a ski rack on its roof, and a ski rack looks an awful lot like cop lights from far away.
Fortunately I made the rest of the trip without a moving violation, and for that matter my life. I don’t claim bragging rights on much, but a decade without a ticket is something I brag about. Oh yes, indeed, I brag.
