We have 3 days! Where should we go? What should we do? As Memorial Day weekend was approaching I was heading into planning mode. We needed to take advantage of the long weekend... should we head to Joshua Tree? Maybe the Sierra? Road trip down to San Diego, how about up to Santa Barbara? Should we go backpacking or car camp? Hike, climb or both? Dogs coming or dogs staying? That extra day meant that we had to get outta town! Never mind that we have had something scheduled pretty much every weekend for the past 4 months or that Paul has been working 12-14 hour days + 3-4 hours of commuting every day. It was a 3-day weekend and we needed to take advantage of the time off!!! So when Paul asked... "Is it okay if we just stay home?" we put the brakes on the big adventure. We talked about what we wanted to do. Staying home didn't mean we wanted to sit around doing nothing... so we came up with things that we would like to do. Climb, hike, and relax were the main 3. Everything else would be gravy.
Rules for the weekend:
- No alarm to wake up
- Plan activities for the first part of the day
- Mandatory chillaxin for the second part of the day
How it all worked out....
Saturday: Slept in, made coffee and breakfast, decided to ride our bikes 11+ miles downtown to Stronghold Climbing Gym (required dusting off our bikes and pumping up some flat unused tires), laughed about how much fun it was to actually ride our bikes again, had a great climbing session (found a new project... a start to a climb that we couldn't get), laughed about how sore certain areas were from the morning ride as w started riding home, decided to take the train back to Pasadena, settled in at home for the afternoon / evening, played with Norman and Betty, made dinner, enjoyed Paul's mad bar tending skills with some tiki cocktails while we caught up on some TV shows... GOT!
Sunday: Slept in, made coffee and breakfast, headed out to explore a new hike in the local mountains, hiked an 8 mile loop with Betty (too hot and long for Norman our bulldog) in the Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness of the Angeles National Forest, hiked along the PCT (ran into 4 thru-hikers), had a picnic lunch and napped under the pine trees at Sulpher Springs Trail Camp, took tons of wildflower pictures, ran into ultra-runners training for the AC100 (including our friend Louis Kwan), stopped for ice-cold Cokes at Newcomb's Ranch, headed back home and settled in for the afternoon / evening, played with the dogs, made dinner, enjoyed Paul's mad bar tending skills with some tiki cocktails... two nights in a row!!!!
Monday: Slept in, made coffee and breakfast (doing this together 3 days in a row... such a treat), gave a shout out to our loved ones in the military, headed to climb at Stronghold (we drove this time... still sore from Sat), another great session at Stronghold (got the start of the project!), headed home... Paul went to a movie while I finally started working on my garden's two raised beds, then over to a good friends for a BBQ, and home again to enjoy the last part of the weekend.
Today we woke up early, with the help of our alarm, ready for the week refreshed and rejuvenated. The true beauty of the weekend was that we managed to fit a lot in while also getting some much needed R&R and time together.