On the road again

Another thing about SoCal that I love is the hikes and driving down PCH from Santa Monica to Malibu. I felt better yesterday and first thing we did was map out a short hike in Santa Monica Mountains. I love hiking, it helps with taking in nature and fresh air at the same time as it is a good exercise.

Solstice Canyon Waterfalls

Highlights:
Lovely creek, 30 ft waterfall, mysterious ruins, hidden statue, ocean views
Near: Malibu, CA
Scenery:
Distance: 3 miles round trip
Elevation Gain: 500 ft
Hike Time: 1.5 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Trail Condition: Well maintained trail
Hike Type: Loop

Link to website

We took the higher ground - rising sun trail on the way back which had beautiful views of the ocean. 

Rest of the day was relatively quick with packing and exhaustion. 

Unscripted question for today: St Helena volcano experience and watching the ashes with my cab driver who was from Olympia washington and grew up climbing st helena. His experience was very interesting about the boom and then the mountains of ashes and boiling rivers. He talked about fearing it was a russian attack and he heard a big blast when it happened in the 80's.

Research:

"The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano located in Washington state, in the United States, was a major volcanic eruption. The eruption (which was a VEI 5 event) was the only significant one to occur in the contiguous 48 U.S. states since the 1915 eruption ofLassen Peak in California.^[1]

The eruption was preceded by a two-month series of earthquakes and steam-venting episodes, caused by an injection of magma at shallow depth below the volcano that created a huge bulge and a fracture system on Mount St. Helens' north slope.:

On the road again.. Bakersfield to Minneapolis via Phoenix.