California Dreaming - There's No Place Like Home

Last day of California trip, well of California anyway...

On Monday morning, Meri and I got up early!!  She wanted to get a hike in before we headed to the airport. We went to the park that had the waterfall and found this.

 We also found another car with hikers waiting to go in.  They gave up waiting after we all sat in our cars for a while and Meri and I climbed through the gate.  We found a map of the park and routed our way to the waterfall.

The cacti were pretty cool!  Look Maddy!  Succulents!

Along the way, the waterfall must have had some wash outs because some of the path was gone and there were just rocks to climb over.  We did find a pretty snifty bridge that reminded Meri of both bridge scenes of the tv series Harpers Island.  DON'T JUMP!!  

The hills of the gorge we were hiking through butted up to some California's back yards and we only know this because we took a wrong turn trying to find the opening of the park.  If we yelled enough, I'm sure some of the neighbors would throw old vegetables at us from above...  

We found the waterfall after 45 minutes of hiking.

A little underwhelming...  It was more like a moist wall.  

And since it was a dead end, we turned around and started our hike down.  

Half way back and my phone started ringing.  It was an FB messenger video chat with my sisters and parents!  I am NOT going to turn that call down!  So we sat on a branch and chatted for a while.  Got to see the talents of a great-nephew!

Eventually we got to the end of our hike and back to civilization.  Doesn't a fire hydrant protected by boulders symbolize that?  

And someone's washing machine run off.  Meri was more impressed by that than the actual waterfall so she posed for a pic of that.

Then we packed up at the hotel, had a nice breakfast and traveled to LAX.  

We got to the airport and through security fairly quickly.  After some exploring, we had a great lunch before returning to our gate. 

Once we were boarded, the flight was delayed longer and eventually they told us that an engine wouldn't start so we can get off the plane if we wanted to.  A girl sitting next to us had a connecting flight to Toronto so she did.  A little while later, the captain told the rest of us to get off too.  This plane was too broke to fly and they were getting us another.  Yikes!  Better now than over the Rockies, right?

So the girl who had gotten off earlier than us let us budge in line to get our connecting flight to Iowa rescheduled.  "We're with her!"

For a little while.  She was able to get a direct flight instead and off she went.

Then we sat.  and sat.  and sat.  Thankfully there was an available plug in to charge my phone within sight of Meri so I read in my little corner and Meri was all alone on her wall...

We finally got back in the new plane after an hour and a half of waiting and eventually winged it back to Chicago where we flew in a holding pattern until they let us land.  Ice storm...  

Since all the flights out of Chicago were now cancelled, they put us up at a really nice hotel and gave us food vouchers to use at the airport.  

On Tuesday morning, Meri and I went down for breakfast before catching our shuttle back for the 8am flight home.  I got a call from Robb who had been watching our flight and he told me that the flight had been moved to 7pm.  dang.  he was right...  Well, the hotel would only let us use the shuttle up until 10am.  So we took it and headed back to the airport.  

I worked from my laptop for a while since I was supposed to be back to work today anyway.  Meri binged watched a tv show and cried when it got sad.  We explored the airport a lot.  

The underground people mover was intriguing and we had races on it!  Once, when I was supposed to be in the next conveyor belt walkway, I purposefully stepped onto Meri's and ran to catch up wiht her.  She heard the whirring of my carry on luggage wheels and looked over her left shoulder to see where I was and almost fell down out of shock that I was right behind her. HA!

So we got a workout all right...  We made up for it by eating well and getting lots of sugary snacks.

I'm so glad I dieted so much before going on this trip...

Finally got on our flight home and made it back to Iowa around 9:30.  Took the shuttle bus out to our economy parked car and found that it had snowed.  A lot...  The roads around the cars were plowed well, but there were heaps of snow surrounding Meri's car.  As we opened the doors, something blew out.  I thought it was a napkin so I didn't worry much.  But then once we were settled, Meri asked, Where is our parking ticket?!  *gasp*  After looking all around her car inside, she backed out over the snow bank and I went back to search with my cell phone flash light.  FOUND the ticket just casually sticking up out of the snow.  WOW...  Prayers answered!  We didn't want to pay the maximum fine for losing it!

Got home around 10:30pm and Meri stayed over in her room.

We were finally home!!  What a wild ride that was!!

Land of the Lost

Last year, my girls and I went hiking into an awesome park that I'd never been to before. It's on the hills around the Des Moines river valley and is quite a ways from our home, but close enough to do a day trip. But last year, the road down into the park was closed due to flooding, so we had to hike down and it seemed like we were in another world. No souls for miles and we half way expected dinosaurs or apes on horses to come around the bends.

Kind of a creepy feeling if you've got good imaginations...

which we do...

So this year. I called the park director to find out if the park was open yet. The damage from the flood last year was pretty extensive and I wasn't sure if there had been flooding this year or not. Turns out that there is a bridge on the lower entrance that is out but crews are working on it. We would still have to hike in if we wanted to go. We did.

I pulled into the parking lot at the north entrance and we saw a whole platoon of soldiers jogging up the closed road. *shoot* The girls didn't want to get out and hike down in front of them, so we decided to try our luck on the lower entrance. I drove out and down and found that indeed, the bridge was truly out. The girls didn't want to walk in front of these workmen either, but after going through the tall grass with lots of sticky weeds, they relented and we walked into "the park" past a bunch of workmen.

On the highway in, we walked and walked.

and walked and walked.

I was pretty sure we'd come to it pretty soon, but then we saw a satellite dish and then some houses where we could hear kids playing in the back yard. And then a campground... The road was abandoned tho. Probably because of the bridge work.

It was weird.

It was also then that I realized we'd probably missed the park entrance and didn't even realize it. I suggested that we turn around and head back. We had to get home in time to go to Robb's bagpipe performance and if we kept going on this weedy abandoned road, no telling if we'd have the energy to make it back to the car!

Someone in our group was upset and even laid in the middle of the road in frustration. I'm not saying who!

On the way back, we discovered that if the name of the park is on the side of the sign that faces us and we headed that way, then we're probably heading INTO the park NOW! hmm... Probably!With the bribery of ice cream on the way home and some pep talks, we made it back to the car dejected. I realized what time it was and that ice cream for lunch probably wasn't the most nutritious meal, so we opted for burgers & shakes from one of our favorite ma & pa fast food places before meeting up with Robb.

Found out later that the entrance to the park was completed gone. I mean GONE! The flooding had washed out not only the bridge we knew about on the highway but a bridge that wasn't there anymore and the whole area was sludged over with mud and muck. I should have taken Maddy's advice and hiked up the side of the hill over dangerous looking rocks. But I didn't want to have to carry anyone that fell on them back to the car.

Call me lazy!

Life is an adventure! Then you rest...

I am back to work today. My Stay-Ca-Tion was great! More on the other things we did in some other post. Today I'm going to talk about yesterday!

We decided that the girls and I would go on a picnic at a park about 30 minutes away. So we packed a lunch, made sure we had bug spray and sun screen and headed out! And I'm going to apologize right now! My camera had some funky smeary thing in the middle of the lens the whole time! shoot.

Since the flooding took down most of Central Iowa, I had to do some creative back road driving to find the park. The girls had been there with Robb a while back, but I'd never been. We arrived and found that the lower part of the park closed to cars because of the flooding. Darn! So we hiked it.

Yep pretty smart huh? The only ones in the park...

We walked down the road that wove back and forth down the densely wooded hillside until we finally came to the bottom where the swollen creek that usually trickles through the park was. It was still rushing, but not as bad as it had been, judging from the silt and sludge all along the parking lots and picnic tables.

The only other people we came upon was a young hiking couple that warned us about water over the road up ahead and that we'd be fine in our flip flops. The water was rushing over the roads and concerned with drowning, I went first just to see how strong the current was. The water was about 6-12 inches deep and the current was strong, but we'd be ok. The girls and I held hands and walked slowly across carrying our shoes in some cases.

As we walked through the valley of trees, water and mud, different movies came to mind. Maddy and Meri said that this reminded them of Jurassic Park and expected a dinosaur to come running around a corner. A small wooden bridge reminded Maddy of Harpers Island and she almost wouldn't cross it. With absolutely no one around, I felt like we'd fallen into some apocalyptic land and we were the only ones left in the ruins. At other times I felt like I was in the set of Planet of the Apes. Weird feeling! whoa.

What a mucky mucky mess! The park people have a LOT of work to do to clean this up! We'll be back so I can see it all again in it's full glory.

We forded two streams until we came to a third and I wondered if the road actually went all the way around or if we were just going to have to backtrack a ton... We decided at the silted over parking lot to go back across the last flooded road and hike straight up the hill to Inspiration point that we'd passed on the way down.

It was a very long hike up and my heart was going a mile a minute.

After several breaks, stops and starts, we finally made it up to the Inspiration Point sign again where I'd taken a before pic of the girls... So I took an after pic too. Meri glistened in sweat this time and they both felt miserable after the climb. No way was I going to take a picture of me!

I think if we did this hike once a week, I'd be to my goal weight pretty darn quick! I just don't think I want to get to that goal quite yet if it means a heart attack... and more climbing...