Mud Run

Brodie's Sea Cadet unit participated yesterday in the Salvation Army Dirt Dash, a 5-K run to raise money for Salvation Army children's camps. The run took place at their camp in the Malibu hills and combined cross-country running with an obstacle course. The last part of the course was a deep mud pit guarded by men with fire hoses. The only safe way through was to combat crawl; Those who stood were washed over with the hose.

After Brodie's race they had a kid's fun run for Nik, thankfully much shorter than 5 kilometers. The kids were then able to hose down and change into clean clothes for the rest of the day. There was a high ropes course to test the Cadets' courage, and a swimming pool for cooling off in the 90 degree heat.

Birthday Hike

On my birthday today my good friend Kevin called me up and invited me to go on a morning hike up to Two Trees, a local landmark here in Ventura. We had to hike past 2 "no trespassing" signs, climb under barbed wire and climb over a fence to get there, but it has the best view in Ventura. The half-mile hike has almost a 1,000 foot elevation gain, pretty much straight up hill.

Afterwards he treated me to a coffee downtown. A wonderful day already, and it's not even noon yet.