What a Weekend! - PART ONE

This past weekend, Julie and I made our annual trip up to Los Angeles with our friends for a quick weekend getaway. This year we decided to go hiking in Malibu, go to a comedy show at The Comedy Store, stay at a schwanky hotel on Sunset Strip and walk around the town on Sunday. All in all it was a fantastic weekend with great weather and phenomenal food, but there were a few things (good and bad) that stood out from the weekend that I felt compelled to share with the masses. This will be a four-part installment (originally 3-Part), detailing the wacky events of our time...1) On the hike, 2) At the hotel, 3) At the Comedy Store and, 4) Sunday. So without further explanation, please enjoy Part One of this four-part saga. Let us begin with...

WHILE WE WERE HIKING...

After researching hikes in Malibu, we decided on Circle X Ranch's "Grotto Trail". After a beautiful ride on Pacific Coast Highway, we turned east and started winding our way up the mountain to this trailhead. We had a beautiful hike as we slowly made our way down (yes, the hike started downhill) to a small cave and water cascade where we stopped for lunch and some climbing. But we didn't get to this beautiful spot before we were stopped by a helicopter.

Wait, what?

Yep, that's right, a helicopter. No more than five minutes into the hike we started hearing the recognizable "whoop-whoop" of rotor blades, and we saw a helicopter circling the canyon where we were about to hike. As we continued walking, the sound got louder and louder, and then we realized that it was no longer the sound of a flying chopper, but it had slowed to an idling one! As we turned the corner and started up a small hill on this narrow path between the chaparral and wildlife, we came to a wide open grass patch where a Ventura County-emblazoned medic helicopter had landed. It's blades idled over the top of the trail, and the medics saw us and gave us the "Stop" hand signal. Being on the bottom side of the hill, we could not see what they were tending to, or even how far away the person in question was, since was the only place in the entire canyon with enough room for a helicopter to safely land...so we waited.

The cause of the wind

After about 5-10 minutes spent discussing the rarity of the incident, the awe of the speed of the back rotor, and the girls constantly trying to fix their hair from the wind, the blades finally sped up and the helicopter took off...with nobody new having entered the aircraft. So finally we began our hike again, and as we came across that corner, we found two medics still tending to a lady with a swollen ankle. From what we gathered, she had taken a fall and they had just landed the chopper to check her out. She must have been getting some great phone service out there...I'm guessing not AT&T. We later saw the chopper returning for a second run (presumably to pick up the medics and patient). Definitely a hiking first for me.

Once we had successfully (and without helicopter-necessary injury) made our way to the caves, I decided to do some exploring and climb along the stone on the water's edge and up into the trickling waterfall. Julie took her shoes off so she wouldn't get them wet in the event she slipped into the water, but since I was wearing my waterproof hiking boots (and being ever-positive about my climbing abilities), I left my shoes on as I climbed around the water and up onto the smooth stone outcropping. Well, after taking many photos and climbing, I carefully began my route back down the cave. After searching for perfect hand and footholds, I navigated my way back all the way to the last turn of the grotto...and immediately lost my footing and slid shin deep into the pond. I don't care what type of waterproof boots you have, when you fall shin-deep into water, it don't matta'! I don't need to go into great detail of the reactions of my loving fiance and friends, but suffice to say that for the rest of the day, the only thing I heard more frequently than their oh-so-funny jokes was the unrelenting squishing from my boots.

That's me pulling myself out of the water...

But surprisingly, neither the helicopter close-up nor my pond-fall served as the greatest highlight of the day's hike. Nope, that moment didn't come until after we got back to the cars, used the restroom, changed out of our dirty clothes, and closed the trunk on my smelly boots...and realized the keys were in there with them.

Ah yes, for the first time in my life, I had locked my damn keys in the trunk. And not only did I lock them in the trunk with the doors locked, I did it right as I said to my friend, "Wow, between having no traffic on the way up, perfect weather and a great hike, everything is going so smoothly. With our luck something bad is gonna happen at some point!" I literally shut the trunk as I finished that sentence, and almost immediately followed it up with "Oh sh*t."

Oh, and I just happened to be in a dead service zone, on a hike in the mountains. After publicly berating myself for quite some time, I made my way into the ranger's hut to use their phone to call AAA. After waiting on hold for about 15 minutes, I was informed that it would take a minimum of an hour before they could get a service truck up there. But then, like an oasis in the desert, the most amazing sight appeared. Roaring up the mountain was a fire truck, which completely by chance was on its way to attending to a hiker with a rattlesnake bite (it was quite a busy day in the life of a Malibu ranger!). My buddy stopped them on the road and asked if they could come back and help us once they were done with their call, and they happily agreed and told us they'd be back 5-10 minutes! And perhaps even more surprisingly, they did! So instead of a potential hour long wait, we had EMT's jarring open my door 20 minutes later! Man did I dodge that bullet! Big shout-out to the Ventura fire crew that saved my ass from further humiliation.

My Heroes

And thus our two-day L.A. adventure was underway. I drove out of the trailhead lot feeling both embarrassed and lucky. But little did we know, this would soon become a distant memory in a weekend full of stories.

Tune in tomorrow for "What a Weekend! - PART TWO", where I discuss a schwanky hotel, free wine, and a celebrity sighting!