Return Trip May 13: Claremont, CA

Luke was at Huntington Beach with friends on Wednesday, he had a good time but lost his cell phone there. That night I got a text from Luke’s phone sent by the person that found it. The text read, “Found this phone leaving it by the showers at the beach shower 11 on top of pillar.” Thursday morning Jack and I drove to Huntington Beach to find shower #11 to collect the phone placed there by a good Samaritan. Luke didn’t think it worth the trip, he thought the phone would be gone and it would be a wasted trip when he had better things to do with his time, like sleep in. The trip was not wasted, got to Huntington Beach, what a lovely lovely beach, and actually parked right in front of shower #12, went south a few hundred feet to shower #11 and just barely reachable was Luke’s phone on top of one of the pillars! Luke’s phone is so beat up, scratched and has the battery held in with duct tape no one else would want it, I don’t understand why Luke thought it would not be where the G. Samaritan said it would be.
Jack was not welcome on the beach or the pier so we did not stay long, too bad, it is a very inviting beach with the blue Pacific, white sand, and sunny blue sky. After a short stroll on the cement boardwalk we headed back to Claremont and met up with Luke to return his recovered phone to him.
Luke has often mentioned snowboarding at Mt Baldy so to satisfy my curiosity about the Recreational area we took a drive up the steep switchback road that takes one from an elevation of about 1000 feet to over 6000 in only a few miles. The grade is 15% near the upper reaches! There is a little town tucked into a tight, steep canyon at about the 6000’ level, nice looking place, cool and fresh seeming after being in the hazy warm valley. The ski area looks compact and precipitous, I prefer a more gentle slope for snowboarding than appears to be offered at Mt. Baldy Ski area. The stream racing down the canyon is clear and cold and animated. It is a beautiful area. The view to the valley is obscured by the haze (or should I call it smog?). I shudder when I think of Luke driving on that pig’s tail road in snowy icy conditions, it’s scary!