There's a place off Ocean Ave where I used to sit and talk to you...

Day 8: LA to El Capitain
miles traveled: 125

Today was a short day. We had originally planned on spending the entire day in LA and using it as a beach day, but since it was overcast, we decided to roll out. We all woke up to a beautiful view of the Pacific ocean from our campsite, and after showers and packing, we headed into LA. Sarah ended up walking around Rodeo Dr. while Turtle, Jenn, and I went to church at the Good Shepard Church in Beverly Hills. It was a beautiful church and it was Pentecost, so the vestments and such were red. The homily that was given was slightly long, but unlike most long homilies, I really enjoyed it. After church, we called up Sarah, who was already heading back towards the car. After all of us were together, we headed over to Hollywood Blvd. Sarah wanted to find the Hollywood sign, which we sort of did, but we had to get a picture of it from far away. We ended up driving around to see if we could get a better picture of it, and on the way, Jenn spotted an orange tree. She got out and attempted to grab one, but sadly, she was too short. We ended up parking on Hollywood Blvd and walking along the walk of fame. We walked down for about 7 blocks and then crossed the street to walk back towards the car. On our way back, Jenn suggested we stop in at the farmer's market, which was the best decision of the day. We picked up a bunch of carrots (4) and a basket of strawberries for $3 total. We continued to walk around the market and look at the sights and smell the wonderful food that was being cooked up. Turtle actually bought a thing of ice cream from a homemade ice cream stand. We all snagged a few small bites from him; it was delicious. We ended up heading back to the car, continuing to snap pictures of our favorite people along the walk of fame. My favorite was probably James Stewart. We got back into the car, our stomachs wondering what this fresh fruit and vegetables were doing there, and headed towards El Capitain State Beach. We got slightly lost on our way there because we were following signs for the campground. Unfortunately, the signs were for the wrong campground, so we had to turn around. It only took us about 5 minutes out of the way. We arrived in the campground and it was beautiful! We found a spot that had two giant trees with it (we were in a forest) that were perfect for climbing. The girls ended up going into town to a K Mart to get some hot dogs and some cash. When we got back, we found Turtle in a tree, playing with the machete, trying to get firewood. Jenn got a picture of him which should be up on facebook soon. We ended up setting up camp and gathering some more firewood before heading out to the beach... the rocky beach. I walked down the beach a bit and talked to Clayton. The others talked on the phone, journaled, and Turtle made towers with the rocks as prayer requests. We went back to the campsite after about an hour and cooked our hotdogs on the fire. Turtle dropped one into the fire, but ate it anyway, and my first hotdog fell into the fire. Turtle was kind enough to eat that one for me, so I made two more. We didn't have any condiments for them, but after eating peanut butter for a week straight, the hotdogs tasted like heaven! We banked the fire and walked back to the beach to watch the sunset and to journal more. We ended up getting these two very nice people, Jeff and Mark, to take our picture. My favorite quote of the night was Mark saying that he knew we weren't from California because we were too polite. Guess what, mom? You taught us well... We chatted with Jeff and Mark for a bit and after a while, noticed what looked like dolphins in the ocean. Jeff said that they were sea lions, which some of them were, but I still held my ground, thinking that I had seen dolphins. The sea lions were about 100 ft off the shore and there ended up being 2 dolphins swimming parallel to the coast. After the sun went down, we said goodbye to our new friends, and headed back towards camp. I brought a log from the beach back so that we would have something to sit on. We made a fire and sat around and talked and hung out for a bit before getting ready for bed. We went to the bathrooms and were able to charge our phones for a bit, which was nice. Since they charged a quarter to use the showers for 2 min, we all went to bed smelling like smoke, which made me really feel like I was camping.