Baseball and BBQ part 2

 

This week has been so hot and sunny (finally) so I've been making the most of it and getting out and about before I start working again. 

On Tuesday, after dropping Mitchell off at work I went for a quick hike up mount Rubidoux which I haven't done in a while. It's only 3 miles round trip, but it's a lovely view of the city below and at this time of year you need to start early in the day. It's summer for schools, so it was busy, but quite nice to see so many people out and about in the outdoors. 

On Wednesday, I went for a meet up event to go and see the local grove of coastal redwoods. It's in an inland park and they're not as big as you'll find up north, but it was still very nice to see in the evening light. Unfortunately, the organiser of the event wasn't very organised, so almost no one was able to find the right starting point (or even the right park) but I had the number of another girl from previous events, so we found each other and had a nice walk together. 

We started in the redwood grove and walked around to the lake and picnic area. It was a nice easy walk and nice to visit somewhere new!

On Friday I went for a big hike down by the sea. I started in a little park in the town of Laguna Beach, which was actually very high up. One of the roads I drove up to get there was so steep I was just looking at the sky and felt like I was in a roller coaster! San Diego has some steep roads, but nothing like this one!

I started the hike by walking through the neighbourhood. Laguna Beach is very nice and all the big houses had all sorts of exotic plants out front, people gardening, and chalk drawings on the street from children playing. 

All along this street and through the first part of the trail, I could see the ocean and feel the cool breeze coming off of it. 

I turned onto the trail, and after a short walk I reached a goat pen! There were lots and lots of goats, including so many kids! They were very sweet and were bleating away. 

After this I walked along a ridge which had long grass either side which was already all brown and crunchy, even though everywhere was green only a month ago. I was heading into a valley, so the view of the sea soon disappeared along with the cool breeze, but I could see huge hills in front of me instead. 

After a while I reached a woody section and in here was a stop called cave rock. It was a couple of holes in a large rock, carved by the wind. I climbed up and sat here to eat my lunch and looked out over the trees. 

A bit further along the trail was another cave called dripping cave. It wasn't currently wet, but there are markings on the ceiling which were caused by water dripping down over hundreds of years. 

The last stopping point on the trail was called car wreck, and it was exactly that. I don't know how a car got into this patch of woods, but it was here and had been heavily graffitied over the years. 

Then I powered through for the last stretch which was pretty tough. Usually, you start with the uphill and end with a nice decline, but this hike had started at the top and descended, so the last part was very steep and tiring at the end of the day in the sun. 

But I eventually made it back to the park and went to see the "Top of the World". From this viewpoint I could see back out to the ocean in one direction and over the woods and hills I'd hiked through on the other. It was the highest point for miles around and I could see pretty far out. 

On Saturday, we went back to Bruno's house for Brazilian barbeque part 2. They had a lot of food left over from last weekend, so we were there to help out and eat some more! It was nice to see people again, although it was an earlier one and we had to leave at 6 to head out to Anaheim for baseball!

We left the car in a business park and then Max and Lorraine picked us up and drove us to the Angels' stadium. It was a bit hectic getting into the car park, but once inside there was lots of space. The stadium itself was all in red and had two huge baseball hats outside with the logo on. You walked through these to get inside, and once we did it was almost like a shopping mall, with so many food outlets and merchandise stands. 

We found our seats and started to watch. We weren't too invested in the game and it was surprisingly slow with only three points being scored throughout the whole match, but it was fun when they did hit it to watch the ball go up really really high. We did see one home run, and when that happened the crowd went wild and flames shot out of the stadium! All the boards showing adverts and keeping score also started flashing and celebrating. Luckily it was the home team who scored the home run, so they had a lot of celebrations ready! 

Aside from the game, we also ate nachos and pretzels and watched a man race someone in a pacman costume to win a prize. Towards the end of the game, a rally monkey appeared on the screens to rally the crowd and get them cheering for the final innings. Sometimes this monkey was just jumping about, other times they had imposed his face onto music videos. It was weird all round, but it did explain why so many people in the crowd had stuffed monkeys in Angels' t-shirts. 

After the game had finished, they had a firework display! It was very cool and was set to music from movies. For us that was probably the best bit of the night. The Anaheim Angels did lose the game, but we had a fun time with our friends (who had just bought a house, so we spent a lot of time talking about that). 

On Sunday we didn't do too much, but we did go out for lunch at a vegan cafe attached to a health food shop where we picked up some veggie essentials we can only get there. I had a burrito bowl which was very good which had a minty pico de gallo (chunky salsa) and tasty avocado ginger sauce. 

Whew that was actually a lot this week!
Love,
Emily and Mitchell

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