Ayden with a straight dive off the 3 meter
Day #691 * Hike #831 * New Track #673
Sunday October 7, 2012
Challenger Park - Simi Valley, CA
My Tripometer: 1 Hour * 1.25 Mile * +225 Feet
Alyssa's 2nd to last soccer game...
Those who follow this blog know by now who Alyssa Moore is. She is the girl who scored over 50 goals last season to help lead the Ventura Mighty Vipers to the State Cup in Palm Springs, California. In the final championship game, a Quartz Hill player kicked out her foot from behind, Alyssa went down and broke her arm in two places. That happened seven months ago...
Update: After being in a cast for a couple of months, Alyssa went back in to action with the Camarillo Eagles, a Gold Club team in the U-12 division. Recently, Alyssa was complaining that her arm was still sore so we took her back in to be seen. Come to find out that she has an infection! Yesterday she went into surgery and for the next 7 days, she will be in the hospital. My wife is there sleeping by her side. Depending how bad this is, she may be required to remain in the hospital for 6 weeks!
Regardless of how long her stay is, six weeks from now she will be required to have another surgery to place a plate in her arm. Then, months after that she will have her fourth surgery to remove it.
The whole situation is just terrible. It started because the first doctor was quick to see her for the broken arm but when he learned what kind of insurance I had, he denied the procedure. The AYSO soccer league was suppose to cover all of this but they were no where to be found. Finally, some 10 days after the break happened, she had the surgery. I claim malpractice on them because how else can you explain the infection.
Alyssa was a rising star in soccer. It's just hard for me to see my little girl in a wheel chair like I did today. Her innocent smile, shinning her one dimple and braces helps me cope with how brave she is. Courage, it will be alright...
Challenger Park Trailhead
Directions:
**And yes, I still hike each day... From the 118 Freeway in Simi Valley, exit on First Street and head south. About 2 miles past LA Ave you will see Challenger Park on your left. I dropped off Ayden at diving and then took up my hike here. The soccer picture above was taken earlier that morning where I caught half of Alyssa's game in Camarillo. Little did I know at the time that this would be the last game that I saw her play as she will be out for the rest of the season. **We had big plans this year; a Vegas Tournament, Surf Cup on Thanksgiving, Dallas Cup, Nationals, Hawaii, etc...
1st junction, we took the right fork to climb higher
Trees
Switchback - Oh, and I'm hiking with a 3-year-old again!
It's peaceful up here...
Let's go this way down the narrow single track...
A more viable trail would take you further into the wild. However, time was limited, as usual and I figured that heading back this way would loop as back to the parking lot...
Views of Whiteface from here
We came down from up there
The trail went left, right and straight, if I recall. Straight would head right back to First Street and there appeared to be more tracks on the other side of the road. Left would have taken me into the wild again and right was right to complete this easy loop. As expected, the trail took us down to the parking lot where we saw...
Horses!
This is a big equestrian area. When I collected police donations many years ago out this way, I recall that their sidewalks were dirt bridal trails. --From here, I rushed back in the car, snapped some shots of Ayden diving; but the day was hardly over...
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