Take a Hike? No, Thanks - My Canyon Adventure, Part 2

Reader, I managed him.

  

Yes, two and half hours after planning to take my first LA hike up Runyon Canyon, I have returned home and am enjoying a well-deserved cold beer.

  

Thanks to Google Maps, I was led up some very dangerous, bendy roads with no pavements – all uphill. I may even have been in Canada for all the time it took me to reach the summit.

  

I stopped to ask two women – the only people I saw en route – if I was anywhere close, and they shook their heads with sorrow, informing me that I had at least another hour to go. Or was it a day? Or a week?

  

Anyway, on I trundled and knew I was heading in the right direction when a sign warned me to beware of oncoming reindeer. I knew I had arrived when another told me to beware of rattlesnakes.

  

I saw none, but then I saw no celebrities, either, which had been the point of my going in the first place. No Gerard Butler, no Colin Farrell; not even any celebrity lookalikes.

  

The place was like an overheated Fraggle Rock. Fat people, mad people, loud people, hideous people . . . all humankind was there. And every dogkind, too.

  

It was the dogs I felt most sorry for. All of them were dragging their bodies along, panting, and looking, for all the world, a wag away from rigor mortis. One woman was insistent that she and her companion stop to give their dog some water. “She doesn’t need water!” he yelled. “She’s just being lazy.”

  

All the fears I expressed in my earlier blog were realised. I have two barbecued arms. My bladder nearly burst with the strain of carrying this morning’s tea over seven miles. Yet I am dehydrated.

  

Don’t get me wrong. I love exercise and I can walk up to 15 miles a day, and regularly do. But not in the sun and along a dirt track with no refreshment truck and no public conveniences.

It’s not often that I look longingly towards Downtown LA in the smog, but each time it materialised into view on my trail, I sobbed with relief.

  

Having done five miles uphill, the last two were all down, and when I hit Hollywood Boulevard and spotted the sign for the 217 bus that takes me almost to my door, I wept with relief.

  

I like the buses here. They are not overheated. They don’t give you pains in your back and legs. And you are never more than a couple of stops away from a toilet. Or a beer.

Thanks a bunch to those people who told me to take a hike; after today, I’m telling you to do one, too. Because yes, my hiking days are over, before they have barely begun.

  

And now it’s lunchtime, I am going to settle down in front of the telly with a bowl of home-made spaghetti Bolognese and a glass of Rioja.

I’ve already burnt the calories off, after all.

Maybe I’ll have seconds.

  

   

To Hike or Not to Hike - That is the Question

Okay, today is the day. It really is.

After four years of living in LA, I am finally going to do a hike.

  

There are many people who, I am sure, wish I had done a hike in a very different context; some have even told me that to my face.

But ever since I got here, people have been begging me to walk to Runyon Canyon Park where, I am assured, the views over LA are spectacular.

  

Now, to be honest, I am dubious, as they have very strange ideas about what constitutes a great view here. I come from Wales, where the sea and mountains provide breathtaking views that could easily compete with the best in the world, But here, your friends can drive you two hours to see something they have told you is amazing and then, when you arrive, it’s an average sized rock sitting in a puddle.

  

“Isn’t it amazing!” they cry, staring at the thing barely bigger than a carbuncle. I go on to tell them about Snowdon, Pembrokeshire, the waves crashing onto Aberystwyth sea front on a windy day – but no, they are very happy with their rock, thank you very much, and why would they leave America anyway to travel to a place where the national sport is dragon-slaying.

  

So, I am not holding my breath for any great revelation at the top of the canyon, especially as most reports inform me that whatever view there is will be hidden under the familiar LA smog.

  

But I have been promised something else, something far more important than any view.

Celebrities.

  

Runyon Canyon is the place, especially on Saturdays, where celebrities apparently flock in their smart leisurewear to work their butts off – literally. They don designer gear, full make- up (and not just the women) and Gucci sunglasses to take to one of the three trails – relatively easy, medium, or hard.

  

Already I am stressed, wondering which trail I should take in order to see the most celebs, but think I had better start off with easy, as this will be my first time.

  

I am also worried about what I should wear, as I don’t have much casual gear, and I am not sure that anything in my Issey Miyake Pleats Please collection will survive the sweat that will no doubt be issuing from my every pore.

  

I’m also worried about toilets. I have a very small bladder and once had to empty it at the side of the Brontes’ house in the middle of the Yorkshire Moors, owing to the lack of rest room facilities.

  

And where will I rest along the way? There are apparently no bars and restaurants en route, just a table with a few snacks and water. Won’t I even get a beer for my efforts?

  

Then there’s the issue of the number of dogs who inhabit the place. I am a huge fan of dogs, but large dogs frighten me and I have a pathological hatred of stepping into doggy-do, of which I understand there is a great deal along every trail.

Even the thought of bumping into Gerard Butler is not incentive enough for me to do anything that involves my having to excavate poop from the bottom of my trainers for the next three days.

  

And what if the sun comes out? I have very fair skin, and even wearing Factor 50, I burn easily.

  

Will I be able to get reception on my iPhone up there? I recently went to a celebrity wedding where, because it was being filmed for TV and photographed for a magazine, they took our cell phones from us at the gate. I had such a panic attack, I had to leave the reception at 9pm.

  

Anyway, so far (and it’s only 8.15am, at the present), I am showing willing. I have dyed my hair, which was cut yesterday, and am currently in the process of bleaching my teeth. Very soon, I will be putting on my make-up and choosing my costume.

  

Or I may just keep writing this and decide, after several hours, that I just won’t go.

  

Too tired, too hot, too much to do, too stressed, too much on the telly. Too can’t be arsed.

I’ll let you know.  

  

   

Catching up with the Angel Gabriel - in a Suit

And so, I am finally up to speed with Suits.

My broken heart at having had to delay my trip back to LA was finally mended yesterday when I sat down to watch the four episodes of Suits I had missed when in the UK.

  

There is nothing quite like the excuse of jet-lag to enable you to don a dressing gown and lounge on the sofa with a glass of wine in one hand and the remote in another.

  

The fabulous Patrick J. Adams, who plays Mike Ross, appears to have grown a foot, and now spends more time kissing than talking, which is a good thing for viewers, although less good for the firm, I suspect.

  

Gabriel Macht is even more beautiful than I remember him. The hair and the suits of his character, Harvey Specter, are perfect, every follicle and stitch a tribute to the make-up and costume departments who make this faultless specimen of manhood possible.

  

Then there’s Harvey’s hunger for power – never more impressive and sexy than when his back is against the wall (which brings me to another fantasy, but enough dribbling for one day. But gosh, he is beautiful).

 

It is, quite simply, fabulous TV, and now I will be living for Tuesdays for the foreseeable future. So don’t call, don’t drop in, just leave me to my angel.

  

I’ve also been catching up on Mistresses, which is as laughable as Suits is brilliant. And yet it is strangely addictive. Quite why Joss (Jes Macallan) has chosen to be a lesbian with the clingy Alex (Shannyn Sossamon), when she had a bloke who could get her bra off in one flick of a light switch movement, is anybody’s guess, but she’s still my favourite.

  

Savi (Alyssa Milano) has good taste in necklaces, but why do her eyelashes permanently look as if they are trying to do a runner from her face? Give them a visa and they’ll be off, I’m telling you.

  

April (Rochelle Aytes) is prettiest of the bunch, but it’s a bit of a bummer that her dead husband turned out not to be dead, after all. Still, she should have been grateful for the extra customer in the shop. Has she sold ANYTHING since the series began?

  

And then there’s Karen (Yunjin Kim), who stares into the middle distance while speaking in a voice that is so tiny, it could send a tiger into hibernation. Will they ever manage to excavate a personality? Will she ever get her fringe cut? Will she ever manage to get another patient, now that the only one she ever had is dead?

  

There is not a man in Mistresses to compete with Gabriel Macht, alas, and Dominic (Jason George) is the best of a very mediocre bunch.

  

But he and Savi work in a very odd law firm that is not a patch on Harvey’s Pearson/Whatever-that-English-bloke’s-name-is-in-the-second-half-of-the-title.

  

They never have any clients, never do any work, and have all their mates and spouses popping in at all hours for casual chats.

  

Apart from Savi and Dom’s quickie, there’s no office sex there, either, whereas in Pearson Thingummy, you can’t even go into the photocopying room without ending up with someone else’s sticky DNA on your hands.

  

British actor Max Beesley has now joined the cast as “fixer” Stephen Huntley for a few weeks and he is ALWAYS in the photocopying room. Let’s just say he never emerges with anything in his hands. Not papers, anyway.

  

And here’s the really confusing thing – Gary Cole, who plays Harvey’s nemesis, Cameron Dennis, in Suits, is also ballistics expert Kurt McVeigh and on-off lover of Diane in that other great legal drama, The Good Wife.

  

Anyway, Suits is back, and that’s all I care about.

My Angel Gabriel is flying high once more.

Remembering Blake Snyder - Four Years On