Yammering Muse: Malibu

Oh dear, I did not mean to disappear! On the plus side I have something really cool to show you!!

Last week Charissa turned 21! Being that she had classes all day on her actual birthday we couldn't do anything to celebrate. So Sunday we headed down to LA-LA-land to celebrate. We went on a hike in the Malibu hills, and then went out to dinner and cupcakes at a restaurant on the Malibu pier. It was a lovely coolish day, and aside from a few scheduling mishaps, everything was perfect! I forgot to take pictures of it, but around 5 o'clock a huge fog rolled in, covering the entirety of Malibu in dark grey gloominess. This was my personal favourite part of the day. It was super weird having to turn on my fog lights on PCH! The other best part of the day was the waterfall! We took the trail that led to a waterfall at an old burnt down McMansion fro the 50's. The place was breathtaking and the water was wonderfully cold! Which ended up being a saving grace too! I was climbing from one rock to another and slipped, landing on my ankle. I soaked it in the water for a good 20 mins and other than a little bit of a pulled tendon, I'm as good as new! All in all it was an excellent day!

My speedometer is broken. I was stopped at a stoplight when I took this!

Surfers!

I was searching for the trail and took a wrong turn up a very steep hill. Then I did a U turn on this very narrow road. It was awesome.

A Hole! We were very amused by all the hollowed out trees and kept joking about finding holes, which I'm sure you can guess where that led...

This was the remains of an old hunting cabin. It was built in 1870-something and didn't burn down until 2007 when we had some really bad fired sweep through this section.

This place brought back a lot of childhood memories! When I was a kid my great grandparents had a cabin up in Big Bear and my sisters and I would go exploring in the woods to find this old burned down cabin which we somehow became convinced was the home of the "Scary Man" who had killed his wife and children, burnt down his home and now roamed the forest looking for other children to murder. We even knew where the secret graves of the wife and children were. One year my dad and uncle were perpetuating this silly legend, and Bri and I were playing on the bunk beds in our room when someone's hand -holding a knife- suddenly hit the window. Bri and I screamed, went running through the cabin screaming. As my dad kept trying to tell us it was just our imagination, my dumb uncle came waltzing into the cabin, quickly hiding something in his pocket. I knew right away that is was my uncle's had on the window, and started yelling at him (I was a very feisty child), and all the adults insisted it wasn't him with what I liked to call their "lying grins." It took years for my uncle to finally admit it was him. Weird how certain places can bring a rush of memories.

We loved how like a band photo this looks!

A rare sighting of Ashley is work-out gear!

Then this happened.

This was the McMansion. It was actually really amazing! It was built in the 1950's and burned down (another fire, welcome to California) in 1982. It was supposed to be a Tropical Paradise, which was kind of funny, because you went from forest to a sudden Oasis of palm trees and tropical flowers.

It went on forever!

There were also about a million fireplaces and stoves!

And bathrooms!

I found the mixed flora quite amusing.

Beyond the house there was once a large terrace area that overlooking the private waterfall. There was a walk way and rail that led to the actual swimming hole section.

At deepest it hit me about my waist, but mostly you could just wade through it. Oh it felt so wonderful!

Bri, Charissa, and I decided to take a waterfall shower! It was freezing cold! The shock of the cold made it all the more fun.

It wasn't actually deep enough to swim (this was the waist deep part), but I tripped and began to swim back to everyone. Plus this was post the ankle thing, so I was not doing to well on me feet.

So much fun!

We stopped at Crumbs for cupcakes which was located in an outdoor shopping mall. This sign was posted on the walls of the buildings and cracked me up. Welcome to Los Angeles County.

For dinner we went to The Beachcomber. The food was marvelous, as were the drinks. And Charissa learned that she is a lightweight. She downed her entire drink before we even got our appetizers and had only had some jerky and trail mix to eat all day. It was pretty funny watching her freak out about how dizzy she felt.

This picture cracks me up!

Calamari with Green Goddess Sauce. I have no idea what it was, but the calamari was to die for!

They had a limited menu because of Valentine's Day, which we were a little disappointed by, but my gosh it was all soooooo good. This is the tangerine shrimp with rice pilaf. Kind of amazing. Bri got Linguine with clams in white wine sauce, Charissa got the Mango Lobster Martini, and Michael and Sarah got the pot roast. Everything was delish! We also got a crab cake appetizer, which was equally amazing. Basically we all ate, and ate, and ate!