… a rusty Jeep-like car…

… a green shed…

… with an awesome sign…

… with more signs and pictures inside (not sure why it wasn’t set up for us? maybe because rain was in the forecast??)…

… and a roped off area where the tents used to be and that famous mountain range in the background.

And after lugging my pregnant belly up the 3-mile hike, I was more than happy to get to our destination. Yeah for us!

Kids can get a little bored while hiking. But lucky for us, our kid loves to play with any found objects. Like sticks. On guard, Dada!

Who says little girls can’t be tough?!?!

And sweet too, of course.

After exploring the area for a bit, it was time to take the 3-mile hike back to our Airstream. Not this again!

Yes, this again.

But soon enough, the path opened up and the stroller was once again being rolled… instead of being carried.

During one of our many breaks, a butterfly landed on me. I’ll take that as a good sign.

And during the next break, Ava decided she has enough of this hiking in the stroller business.

And ran the rest of the way home… to Mali Mish, our beloved Airstream.

Thanks for following our adventures!

the end,
marlene

And to the other side, we had some white clouds and blue sky. Not too shabby.

Can’t we go anywhere in this place without a million signs? Good thing we left our fire making skills and martinis back in the Airstream.

And we are off! Dan sported his Back to the Future vest (1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!). Ava sat in her comfy stroller (lucky!). Our friend Nicole, took pictures of us while wearing pants that could be unzipped at the knee to transform into shorts (dork!). And me, in my bright pink t-shirt and 6 month pregnant belly (what was I thinking?). If you were there on that day, I am sure you couldn’t miss us. And if you were there on that day and even thought of uttering one teeny weeny complaint, the words would have evaporated from your lips like my Grandpa’s moonshine… because look at my belly… on a hike! Great Scott!!

The trip from the campsite to the M*A*S*H site is about 6 miles round trip. It’s a 0.7 mile walk from the campground to the start of the dirt hiking path. Another 0.7 miles to the Visitor Center. And a final 1.5 miles to the M*A*S*H site.

The Visitor Center breaks up the hike, nice and even. Just about half way there. It is only open from 12 to 4 on weekends. So keep that in mind. We were a little early and had to sit on the porch swing set while we waited for it to open. No complaints here.

This unsafe structure was located next to the Visitor Center. Thanks goodness for its useful sign! I was <this> close to letting Ava play on it.

Once the Visitor Center opened its doors, we got to check out lots of info about the local flora, fauna and history. And not to mention some stuffed coyotes…

… stuffed birds…

… and some amazing ancient artifacts! Hehe.

Slowly but surely, we made it to our next rest stop. The bridge.

Oh, the sound of a babbling brook. Or is it a stream? I don’t know. Who really cares! It’s water and it made a pretty sound.

Just as we were about to take off for the last 0.5 miles of our hike, a couple stopped us and warned us about the path ahead. What? You don’t think we should take the stroller? What! It’s narrow and rocky and muddy. Oh my. Let’s give it a try anyway. We’re not turning back now! We are soooo close.

What? The couple’s prediction came true? Imagine that.

So, Dan was promoted to Super Daddy…

… and our friend Nicole was promoted to Super Woman!

After lots of huffing and puffing, we sat down for a much needed break. Snack time! Little did we know that we were just around the corner from the much anticipated M*A*S*H site.

Stay tuned to find out if we actually ever made it to the M*A*S*H site or not…

the end,
marlene

When you have a toddler, you don’t have hours and hours of nothing to do. Because there is always something to do. Like exploring the campground. So, if Ava sits still and “relaxes” for few minutes, we soak it in… fast!

Adjacent to the campground is this old fenced off house, which is the Angeles District Headquarters. Not really sure what goes on in there, but hopefully they are hard at work on a plan to keep this state park open and all the others that are close to being shut down.

In front of the restroom/shower area, we ran into some important information regarding the campground. Oh, just a little something about a dangerously venomous reptile. Great, I’m wearing flip flops. Luckily, we didn’t run into any unwanted visitors like this guy.

There is also a map of the hills that surround the campground in case you wanted to plan out an expedition.

My favorite part of the map was Goat Buttes. But that’s because I love 3rd Grade level jokes. Buttes. Hehe.

The campground does not offer any hook-ups. It seems to cater to mostly tent campers. But, there are these water spigots between some of the sites, like ours. Don’t expect to connect your hose to them full time. They are there for everyone to share… plus the spigot is the type that you have to hold open by hand.

There are fire pits at each site, and depending on the fire danger level of the day, the campground does allow you to light some type of fire. During our campground exploration, we ran into the Campfire Center sign. Hmm, I wonder what this is all about? And more wildlife danger signs just under it. Ticks? Are they trying to scare me out of here!?!

The sign led us down a beautiful path that made us forget we were right next to the campground area still. We immediately fell in love with the green hills and fluffy clouds.

After a few bends and twists on our path, we ended up at the Campfire Center. It was a nice group area with lots of bench seating, a screen behind that burned gate thing, a fire pit to the side of screen, and stone box to rest the movie projector on.

But Ava didn’t care what the Campfire Center was supposed to be for. To her, it was a stage and it was time to dance.

And dance some more.

Here is a little bit of advice about the Campfire Center… don’t let your kids play on the wooden benches.

Reason #1: Don’t let them play on the benches unless they are big fans of splinters. Yes, that’s splinters with a ‘s’ at the end. As in, more than one. Actually more than two. How about six!!

And Reason #2: Don’t let them play on the benches unless you are a big fan of a kid that flips you off the entire trip!

Stay tuned for more camping adventures with our Airstream at Malibu Creek State Park.

the end,
marlene

Well, that nightmare did not materialize. In fact, the trip there was as uneventful as one could imagine. A short drive up the 101 where most of the way was a 6-lane freeway with just the last 5 miles or so a straight 2 lane highway. I think the fact that we did not come from the ocean side of Malibu was the difference. Las Virgenes Road goes all the way through to PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, AKA California Highway 1) and it dumps you off right next to Pepperdine University. I am guessing driving a big RV thru the road to there would not be too pleasant.

When I booked the site from ReserveAmerica, I noticed that Malibu Creek State Park has no hookup sites. No big deal, I thought. We just got our Honda generator and for 2 nights, our water tanks are more than enough to get us through. What was a problem was it only allowed RVs and trailers up to 24 ft. Mali Mish is 25 ft. I went ahead and reserved it and kept my fingers crossed.

As we entered the gate to the park, which is literally minutes away from one of the busiest metropolitan areas in the world, we could not believe that this place was so close yet we never knew that it existed. Since the day was a bit overcast with big puffy clouds floating in the sky right around the height of the mountain ridges, it reminded us of our honeymoon trip to Moorea Island in Tahiti. Of course, it was missing a few ancient volcanic islands and statues of tiki gods so we got right back to reality and into dealing with the issue at hand: Are they gonna let us in with a 25 ft trailer?

The answer was an “I guess so”. Actually the ranger at the gate did not mention a thing about the size. All that sweating into the cloth interior of my high-back captain’s chair was for nothing. We are now on our own to squeeze an extra foot into parking space meant for a tent camping site.

Ava was pretty excited to get this hand drawn map of the campgrounds because her favorite cartoon character, Dora the Explorer, always kept one in her backpack.

There were a lot of day use areas in the park since many LA residents like to come here to hike, ride or have a nice picnic just for the day. The overnight spaces were all the way around the back of the park so we drove around and found a tight little spot in which I had to maneuver the rig into.

I was able to back the trailer in pretty much one try, even with the narrow path and large boulders on each corner. The bigger issue was that all of the sites have some type of incline one way or another.

With the Airstream completely against the curb stop at the end of the site, I had to figure out a way to level it. In the past, we have just simply carried some scrap 2x4s and nothing was bad enough to need more than 1 block of wood to level it side to side.

This spot on the other hand was much worse than we have had in the past. The biggest problem with having the trailer lean to one side is the fact that our bed runs thru the width of the trailer rather than the length. That means if we couldn’t jack up the starboard side (that is the right side for all you non-nautically literate folks) up high enough, all the blood would rush into our heads as we slept at night. And that is not a pleasant feeling. Of course all these complaints were at the expense of everyone who is sleeping in tents around us. I know, Wah! Wah!

Luckily for me, just a couple weeks before the trip, I decided to splurge and get some legitimate leveling blocks for the Airstream. Out were the 2x4s and in come the over-sized orange LEGOs.

We needed them to be stacked 4 high to get the leveling just right but unfortunately it only came with 10 pieces.  Plus there really wasn’t enough room between the 2 axles to build up to 4 levels for the front tire and doing what is shown below in the photo just made the Airstream push the orange blocks along the asphalt instead of rolling over on top.

We settled with 3 blocks and although it was still slightly off to starboard (are you starting to get a hang of this, sailor?), it was going to have to be good enough. After all, we will have our heater to last through the night while our neighbors are sleeping in their hoodies and gloves.

Part of having to level the trailer also means that we are not going be able to use our rubber wheel chocks to block the tires off. The last thing you’d want in the middle of the night is to have the trailer roll off of these blocks and into the van. Well, it would suck during the day too, I suppose.

During my trailer shopping spree, I also had enough foresight (pat, pat on my own back) to get a set of these wheel stops to solve just that problem. A little turn of the bolt locks the tires against each other and now we can sleepy soundly at night. Did I mentioned that we have a heater?

Well, time to do some exploring with Dora and her map. Here are some shots of the Tahitian puffy clouds for your viewing pleasure.

Stay tuned for more about Malibu Creek State Park!

over and out,
dan