Well, a friend thought it would be nice to surprise me with a hike this weekend. So she drove me out to the East Side to a trail I'd never been to before. It started out well, but soon things began to go so wrong it was almost comical.
First my camera had a disagreement with a rock. The rock won. So my camera's dead right now, and I need to try and turn it into a zombie.
After the camera died, things began to go horribly wrong. One thing you must understand is that this trail is criss-crossed with hunting trails. And since my friend didn't know the trail well and I had no idea what this trail was like we were following these pink flags that were tied to the trees every ten meters or so. Unfortunately, this was the wrong choice.
The trail started getting progressively harder and harder. It was muddy and slick, and we had to climb mountains and scale down cliffs. After four hours, we were certain that we'd gone the wrong way. Unfortunately, while it had taken four hours to get this far, and though we knew how to get back, we had only two hours of daylight left. And no cell service.
So while I went around looking for stuff to make a shelter with my friend monitored the cell phones. Eventually she got a bar and managed to call the rescue service. We just wanted directions to the fastest way back, but they insisted on sending a rescue helicopter. Which was good, because we'd gone a lot further than we'd realized. Even with us giving them constant directions, it took the chopper a long time to find us because we'd trekked about a third of the island. When it finally did find us it lowered the basket and we rode back to civilization one at a time.
And holy crap that ride was awesome. It was the most beautiful view I have ever seen. It looked like that part in Jurassic Park where they fly through the island, only cooler because it was real and there were pockets of mist that added to the atmosphere.
And of course my camera was dead through the whole thing. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and my camera wasn't there for it. So it was seriously bittersweet.
So I have a few pictures from before my camera went KIA, and I'll post a couple over the next few days. The schedule goes like:
Day #1: San Diego Zoo
Day #2: Lava Tube Breakers
Day #3: Kahana Hike of Hell

Oh yeah, and it doesn't sound like any of my friends here had a great weekend either. One stepped on a venomous sea urchin, and another might've gotten herpes from sharing water with someone. How was your weekend?