quite content and malcontent at the same time

i just had an awesome evening. all in all, i had a pretty excellent day! i went to church at oasis with ruth, and they had a picnic afterwards. it was perfect weather for it! i think i just might like this church. i'm going camping in joshua tree with them in a few weeks!

this afternoon, i actually made myself sit down and study a while, which was pretty productive (tho frustrating at points, which is where the malcontent comes in).

then tonite, we (a group of 8 of us from oasis church) tried to go moonlight hiking. it didn't work so well. we ruled out eaton canyon before we left, since it's closed after dark. we then went up to the end of lake ave, where i went hiking before, but as we got out of the car and walked toward the gate, a cop car came by and yelled at several others that were already in the gate that the park was closed. apparently some kids had been up there recently, throwing rocks at houses below, and one rock hit a kid and busted his head open. so yeah, no going up echo mountain after dark.

we asked the cop if he knew of anyplace we could hike at 930pm, and he didn't. shelly knew of a place called chaney trail to go up where there's a waterfall, but when we got there, the gate was down and we couldn't get up there. so matt called a buddy who suggested we drive up the 210 and exit at the road that goes up to mt wilson, which we did. there's a few turnouts to park at, but the first couple (with the best views of the city) were taken by a lot of parked, ahem, couples. so we continued up to another lookout that had awesome views of the valley and nearby mountains, but only a sliver of the city was visible. because of the immense light from the city, we were all silhouettes on the ridge, so david got a couple pictures of us backlit. then we decided to spell things (LOVE and HOME, HOME is easier) and i got to be the E. it's a little tricky.

well, then we decided to go up further to see if we could go up to the observatory at mt wilson with really great views of the city. on the way up we passed a few other turn outs with great views and no one else, so we just parked at another one and got out and stood on the edge of the mountain, enjoying the view. the city was beautiful, but i couldn't make out any landmarks or anything. the stars were out, but because of all the light pollution, i couldn't see that many. but it was a very clear night and we could see a long way! it was also fairly chilly, about 51 degrees (according to matt's car), and windy! we stood there for probably 30 min just watching, chatting, and laughing. i had a really really good time!