I met Jeanette when I worked for the Forest Service in Wyoming. She and her husband Shawn also were working for the same Ranger Station and we became fast friends. We often went hiking and cross-country skiing together and they had also both worked for the Park Service like myself so we had a lot in common. Then they moved to Jackson to work for the Bridger-Teton NF and I visited them once up there before I got a job for the Sequoia NF and moved back to California. They came out to California once to visit me in the winter of 2004 then we all went to a mutual friends' wedding in Big Sur a few months after that. After that they moved to North Carolina then to Alaska then to Montana and finally back to Jackson, WY. Last year I invited both Jeanette and Shawn to my wedding but her sister's graduation was the same weekend. So I haven't seen them since 2004 and when I heard that Jeanette would be flying into LA and visiting a friend in Ventura for a few days I was very excited to get to see her again.
Todd and I drove out there together yesterday. Thank goodness we went together because that meant that we could take the carpool lane all the way there and on the way back as well it allowed us to fly by all the typical LA traffic. Ha ha suckers!
We got out to Ventura shortly before lunch so we met down near the waterfront and had lunch at the Aloha Steakhouse which has an amazing view of the ocean and the Channel Islands. We had an fabulous mushroom stuffed artichoke appetizer and then salads and sandwiches. Then we headed out to find a trail I had read about in a Dayhiking So Cal book. On the outskirts of Thousand Oaks is Wildwood Park which has lots of trails and beautiful things to see. Plus, they allowed dogs, and this is what we needed to hear since we were bringing along Jeanette's friend's dog Wally.
Since we got a later start we just did the 3 mile loop to Paradise Falls. The Moonridge Trail followed a ridgeline along the canyon and dipped here and there into small ravines. We saw a lot of wildflowers as well as squirrels, hawks, and other birds. One person on the trail ahead of us said they saw a coyote. The grass was green and the sky blue and it was about 80 degrees outside... Gotta love February in Southern California!
The trail down to the falls was steep and coming out wasn't easy but the scenery was worth the effort. The falls plummet 70 feet over a rock face and the water was running quite high. We enjoyed the falls for a little while and Wally got a good drink then we headed back uphill.
It was a good hike and too bad we couldn't stay longer but Jeanette needed to go back and pick up her friend from work and we needed to get on the road. So we said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.