This weekend Dani and I went camping with a whole grip of friends (i've been trying to work that word into my vocab more often.) We went about 15 miles from our house to this 8,000 acre wilderness park called Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park. It was about as cush a camping experience as you can expect, short of cabins, but as is required for camping a group of this size. (See description of size earlier.) It was lots of fun though and b/c it was so close we got to spend a ton of time there, and we got great warm weather! 
The wife and I on our "Throne".
We came across a good size rattler on a hike.
Jocky by the historic "Ole Corral Windmill" built circa 1940.
We also came across a good sized Horned Frog!
Luckily I was wearing my TCU purple so we were cool.
That's Catalina Island in the distance.
It was a cool hike and a cool trip, and nice to see that there is actually a ton of green space surrounding the sprawling metropolis that is the OC. It helps to not feel quite so fenced in.
Friday -
Dani and I were invited to eat Indian food with Neha and Astik. Ever since we got a taste of authentic Indain food at Neha's wedding, she had been promising to take us to their favorite Indian food restaurant in all of LA/OC. So we're thinking that its going to be some amazing authentic atmosphere/experience, and I asked Neha what it was called, thinking it would be something like "Bombay Palace" or "The Taj", but no, its called "The India Restaurant". So the atmosphere wasn't exactly all that amazing, although it was different. But the food held up to the promises, it was really good! The garlic naan was great, and I had some spicy ground lamb something, and it was delicious. As we went home we realized we stunk like we'd be slaving over some sizzlin curry all day, and the next day my car still smelled like it! But it was worth it, and we're already talking about the next time...
Saturday -
We decided that we had a lot to take care of around the house this weekend in order to feel comfotable going backpacking last weekend and camping next weekend. So saturday morning, we set to work on the house, Dani working on the kitchen and usual wifely domestic things, and I working on equally husbandly domestic things, in the garage. I got a hankerin to organize and organize I did. I was a mounting, hanging, cargo stowing fool.
Sunday -
Dani and I got up pre-crack o' dawn and made our way over to Steed Memorial Park in San Clemente for the EasterTogether.com sunrise Easter service that 8 south OC churches got together to put on. Dani's been to sunrise services before and enjoyed them, but I've never been to a one. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a very cool service overlooking the sun rising over the Ortega mountain range. It definetely had tradition potential.
We had some a rousing bocce ball tournament, a chipping comeption, and even some ladderball.
It was a great day celebrating with great family and friends!
just the two of us. We wanted to just do a quick overnight trip to get us back in the swing of things, and we got more than we bargained for. We went to hike the Piedra Blanca Trail (named after the amazing White Cliffs you hike through) in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai, CA. We attempted to hike up the Pine Mountain Lodge campground at about 6400' but we stopped about 2 miles short and decided to bed down at a small campground we had passed about a quarter mile back. Which turned out to be great, because we were the only people for miles around, and there was nobody playing Tom Petty on their iPhones next to us (as we experienced last camp out), or disturbing us whatsoever. Just us, God, and nature, it was great. We have resolved however to go back and with a slightly earlier start to the day, complete the climb up to Pine Mountain Lodge, can't wait.
... carry the 1... yeah, this way.
Look at my amazing leg on fire trick!
