Spent a quiet weekend hanging out at my friend Dan’s place in Rancho Mirage. It was a 115° in the shade. Just felt too hot to do much of anything, but hang out by Dan’s much welcomed pool, and stay inside and binge watch Netflix. We are coming back this winter to explore when hopefully the weather is a bit more hospitable.
We continued on to Moorpark, CA and to the home of one of Will’s college buddies. The temps there were comfortable in the high 80’s during the day and mid 70’s at night. We started off going to the Malibu Creek State Park. This park has a number of day hikes and appears to be a popular jogging destination for the locals. We hiked to the MASH site. Yes, you can hike to the set where the MASH TV show was filmed. There aren’t too many items left marking the site but the terrain was quite familiar from the opening scenes of the show. This is only a 5 mile round trip hike, but I was trying to break in a new pair of boots and ended up with a couple sizable blisters. So, needless to say that was it for our hiking that day.
The next day was headed back to the Malibu Creek State Park and just hiked to the rock pool area. This is a oasis in the middle of a dry desert looking terrain. It is also a popular swimming spot for the locals or anyone crazy enough to just off one of those boulders. We then headed to the William S Hart museum. Hart was a silent western film star in the 1920’s. Upon his death he gave his ranch to LA County. One of his requirements was that it would be free to the public because they were the ones who had made him a star. There is a barnyard area there with some animals and a range area for a herd of bison. You can also take a self-guided tour of the ranch house, which is where Hart lived while waiting for his house to be built on the hill. There are tours of the main house on certain days of the week. the house tour makes visiting this park worthwhile. The guide provided a lot of history on Hart, his home, his career and his co-star, a horse named Fritz.
The next day we had reservations for the guided tour at the Nethercutt Museum. This is another free museum, but you have to reserve a spot for the guided tour. The Nethercutt family own the Merle Norman cosmetic company. The family amassed a large collection of vintage automobiles and music boxes. You can tour a good portion of their car collection on your own, but across the street they have additional cars on display via the guided tour. There you are allowed to get as close as possible to the cars without touching and they are displayed in a 1930’s style luxury car showroom. The guide then takes you up a level to hear some of the music boxes being played. One of them was 118 years old. Then it’s up another level to the highlight of the tour referred to as level Cloud 99. This level has a number of self-playing orchestras and a large theater pipe organ. The orchestras are fascinating machines. They were popular in Belgium and Germany. They contain real instruments that are inside these huge music boxes that sometimes take up entire walls. We then were treated to a mini concert with the pipe organ. This organ is 100 years old and has 5,200 pipes the longest of which is 33 feet. One of the requirements of the museum is that everything must work. These pieces are not meant merely for show. The cars are taken out on the road at least once a year and the music boxes are played. It really is a nice 2 hour tour, all for free. Dave and Alma were great hosts for our few days in Moorpark. We had home cooked meals every night.
We were then on to meet the rest of our group at Ventura harbor for our adventure to the Channel Islands. Five of the eight Channel Islands make up the Channel Island National Park. We chose Santa Cruz Island for our 3 nights of camping. Upon reaching the ferry dock, we were told the crossing would be rough and were offered a refund. Well, we had 3 nights of camping scheduled and were a group of 7, so on we went. The swells were 4-5 feet and it was rough. I ended up spending half the trip outside when I started feeling a bout of seasickness coming on as did quite a few others. Unfortunately, one member of our group really had a tough time and looked really green when getting off at the island. Thankfully, Alan recovered fairly quickly once we got on land. After a quick talk from Ranger Bethany about the do’s and don’ts of island food storage we were turned loose to hike to our campsites. The Island Foxes have really taken to hunting for food left out by careless campers. The campground foxes are not shy and will take your food unless you remain constantly vigilant. They will also visit your tent if it is not zippered up correctly. There is a lot of truth to the saying clever like a fox, because these guys are something else. Fox proof boxes are provided at each campsite, which like food storage for bears, food and anything scented must be stored in the box. We got our tents set up, fixed our lunch, and went to check out the Visitor Center. The Visitor Center provided a brief history on the island and what happened when ranchers took it over in the mid 1800’s and what the park service has been doing to return the island to it’s natural state. We then went off to explore the island a bit more and did the Potato Harbor hike. The views were incredible and the hike was a fairly easy 5 miles. We chose to head out to Cavern Point on our return to create a loop instead of an out and back hike. The night was spent talking, playing cards, checking out the starts and enjoying a really lovely evening until the nightly fox fighting began. Those guys are very territorial and square off multiple times day and night.
The next morning we woke to a sunny, but windy day. This was the day we had scheduled our sea cave kayaking adventure. We donned our wetsuits and set out with our guide, Chuck. He has 16 years guiding experience in the Channel Islands, so we felt that we were in excellent hands. We were a group of 8 for our tour and picked out our tandem kayaks. Tandem kayaks also are nicknamed marriage breakers or divorce boats. Will and I were hoping to make it through the day still speaking to one another. We went into quite a number of caves each seeming to have a new challenge for us. The constant surge of the waves in and out of the caves makes it really interesting. Sometimes you are literally lying on your back paddling because that is the only way you will fit through. We saw a number of kayaks flip that day including 2 from our group. But everyone was able to climb back on their boat and continue the adventure. Will and I managed to stay in the boat and were still talking to each other at the end of the day. Even those that went for a swim had a great time. This was not your lazy river canoe trip by any means. I was really sore by the end of the day and surprised that it felt like I had truly gotten a full body workout battling the waves.
That evening, Ranger Bethany was showing an outdoor movie about the Channel Island Restoration project. Amazing the progress the park service has made in just a little over 20 years. the Island Fox at that time numbered about 100 today we were told there are about 3,000 on Santa Cruz Island alone. The park service is continuing to work on restoring the island back to it’s natural state before the ranching brought in a series of issues with non-native plants and animals. We also went scorpion hunting. These guys were really small and glow green under a black light. It was an early night for most of us as the kayaking had taken its toll.
A couple of our group were headed out on the noon ferry. The rest of us decided to do the ridge hike. It was labeled as a strenuous hike and only for experienced hikers. This hike also provided some amazing views looking back at the California coast and views of the other side of the island. There are also remnants of an old oil well that was never able to find any oil just water. We lost 2 others of group that afternoon as Alma and Dave were headed back on the 4 o’clock ferry. Dan, Will and I had one more day to explore and called it an early night as we were burned out from all our activities.
The next morning we packed up and stored our gear. We were headed back on the 4 o’clock ferry which gave us enough time to hike over to Smuggler’s Cove. The trail follows along a road which didn’t offer much in the way of views or changes in scenery from what we had already seen. But all that changed when we reached Smuggler’s Cove. The beach is made up of round rocks and the waves were crashing and breaking fairly close to shore. So, there was no swimming or wading in the water, but we sat in the shade of the trees enjoying the view and the fresh ocean breeze. Such a nice break in the middle of our hike. The ferry ride back was fairly uneventful and we headed back to spend another night at Dan’s in Rancho Mirage.
We headed off to Phoenix the next morning. We had early dinner plans with an old high school friend of Will’s. Always good to see people you haven’t seen in a while. The following morning we awoke to rain. Yes, a uncharacteristically rainy day in Phoenix. So, we went to the number one rate attraction, the Music Instrument Museum. This place has instruments from all over the world and some instruments from well-known musicians as well. It’s $20/adult which includes your headphones. For each exhibit there is a television screen that has video snippets of various performances, concerts or demonstrations of the instruments being played. You merely walk up to a screen and the sound comes through your headphones. They even have a room that contains instruments you can play. Really great for those restless kids that want to touch everything. We ended up spending close to 3 hours at this museum, it really was well done and you would have found me dancing throughout the museum enjoying the music.
That night we went see a friend of mine from Chicago, that was visiting her husband’s recently discovered half sister. They were matched up from doing one of the DNA kits that you see advertised. So, yes you really can find long lost or unknown relatives. Dinner was great, an Italian feast made by Judy’s husband. Well our time was up and headed back to the Land of Enchantment the next morning.
