Week 20: Malibu State Park

A few weeks ago, Tom found a list of local "swimming holes." I thought swimming holes only existed in Mark Twain, but apparently they also abound in Los Angeles County. In any event, we ventured to Malibu State Park to check out the swimming hole, and this being L.A., the outdoor set of M.A.S.H.

Since it's been over a month now since we went, I am just going to dump a bunch of pictures on you. Suffice it to say, it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. What was less lovely was the Wednesday morning that I spent at the DMV after losing my license on the aforementioned Sunday afternoon, but that is another story entirely. Anyway...the M.A.S.H. set was cool.

I want a horse.

After about a six mile hike, it was swimming hole time. For Tom anyway.

{debating}

{going for it}

Final analysis? Malibu Creek State Park is a lovely oasis in the middle of the city. M.A.S.H was a terrific program. And Hot Lips Houlihan is a fabulous (albeit slightly sexist) character name. Hurrah for state parks and Hot Lips!

 I was just going to warn you to avoid doing a Google image search for Hot Lips Houlihan because time, or more accurately, the plastic surgeon, has not been kind to her, but then I thought, I've seen it, and I shouldn't have to suffer alone. Avert your eyes if you don't want to tarnish your memory of Nurse Houlihan.

Ah, we can't go out like that. Happily, Hawkeye has aged much more gracefully.

To sum up, go to the Malibu Creek State Park. Do not do Google image searches of tv hotties from the late seventies.

Dude. Nature is awesome. (And so are collective nouns.)

Thanks to the internet, nature is really blowing my mind lately. [I am not unaware of the irony in that statement; I am simply choosing to ignore it.] Since I do not like to have my mind blown solo, I am sharing these discoveries with you. You're welcome. Prepare to be amazed.

So, yeah...this is sand.

What?! Sand, you say? I do say, and so does Dr. Gary Greenberg, the artist/scientist/magician who uses a fancy-pants microscope to take micro photos of individual grains of sand, among other things.

  I mean...really. Who knew? I am never going to look at the beach the same way.

You can see more of Dr. Greenberg's work, buy a book of the sand grain images, and order prints of his work on his website.

I like this next example of nature's awesomeness for two reasons. One  - The title of the video is Murmuration, which besides being fun to say, is the word for a flock of starlings.

This delights me because I am a nerd, and as a nerd, I like learning collective nouns. I blame my parents for reading us A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns when we were little. Who am I kidding? I loved that book and will definitely be reading it to my kids. In fact, I will probably treat them to all of the books in Ruth Heller's World of Language series (Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives, anyone?).

Thanks to this book, I know that a group of penguins is a parcel and when peacocks get together, its a muster. I don't recall, but I doubt Ms. Heller covers a murder of crows.

{How cute is that?}

Holy grammar tangent. Moving on...the second reason that I love this video is that it just shows nature being awesome. Apparently my verbal abilities have deteriorated to a level associated with your average pothead, I blame the aforementioned mind blowing. In all seriousness though, this is really breathtaking. I think I was literally holding my breath at the end. The video was shot by Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive on the River Shannon in Ireland.

                          

I have no idea how that girl managed to keep such a steady hand. I'm pretty sure that, had I been in her shoes, I would not have been contemplating the magnificent beauty of the natural world because this is all I would be able to see.