Los Angeles, the Big Orange, the City of Angels, La La Land. I was lucky to enjoy a couple days down in the city chilling with an old friend of mine, Alec. Alec was also one of my original housemates my first two years of undergrad. As we got some good ol' fashioned tacos, we brought out all the crazy stories of Lawrance Hall, philosophical thoughts on life, and debated random shit that we once used to spend many late nights discussing...good times. Like with any good friend, we just acted like fools (see right).
We took a trip down to Ventura to board the Island Packers ship to the Channel Islands. This boat was packed tight like a can of sardines with retirees and Boy Scouts. Now I know why they call it Island Packers. We got off at Santa Cruz Island, which once used to be a ranch, and hiked along the ridge.
The cloud cover was insane. We couldn't see anything. In fact once we took the 4 mile trip to the peak at Montaña Ridge, we could barely see anything around us. We waited for things to clear, but it was only once we made our way down that the clouds burned off...revealing the surrounding islands off the shore. The Channel Islands are a set of 8 islands off the Santa Barbara coast, but only 5 of them are protected by the national park service. The Chumash Native Tribe (the first inhabitants) called Santa Cruz Island, the big island, Limuw which means "in the sea." While the eastern half is open to the public, the western half is controlled by the Nature Conservancy.
Many people choose to go kayaking, snorkeling, or diving. We did get to jump into the warm water after our hike, but mainly we spent the day hiking. All along the trail were island foxes, sly guys trying to sneak into the campgrounds for a quick meal. This is SeaBiscuit.
