I figured I should check out the Malibu Creek State Park before it gets shut down. The entrance is by the intersection of Mulholland Hwy and Las Virgenes Rd. Mulholland is one of my favorite drives whenever I start to feel too claustrophobic in the city.
It took me a while to get oriented. To be honest, I never did. I simply just picked a trail that looked promising and kept going. It ended up being a nice six-mile hike, or rather walk. 
The park has a little bit of everything; grasslands, high peaks, streams, small lakes, forest. I saw a couple of large eagles of some sort, a few rabbits and a bunch of lizards.According to wikipedia:
"Malibu Creek State Park is a California state park near Malibu, in Calabasas. It opened to the public in 1976, This majority of the park is made up of land donated by Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan. Other parts of the ranch added later were owned by paramount studios and fox studios. Most recently an area formerly used by Soka university was annexed to the park. It is known as gillete ranch because the buildings were build by the original owner Gillete the razor manufacturer."
I had no idea. I did find the place where they once shot MASH. Some rusty old vehicles are still there.
There was also a shed with a sign on it, saying that due to repeated break-ins, the shed is now unlocked, and please respect the display inside and close the door once you are done. So I did. There were a couple of display signs and the road marker with the distance to places from Seoul to Boston, but I doubt that it was the original one. (What the heck is that called anyway?)
I think that mountain in the background might be the one over which the helicopters fly in, during the opening credits of MASH.
By the way, Robert Altman's movies are hit and miss for me. He is universally hailed for Nashville, but I could never stand it. Maybe because it doesn't have a single likable character. MASH on the other hand is one of my favorites, despite of its intermittent undercurrent of misogyny. At the time I first arrived to the US I had no idea that MASH was also made into a tv show, and was very confused seeing it in the tv guide scheduled in half an hour increments Monday through Friday. When I tuned in just got more flummoxed; it kinda looked like the movie, but it was not. I would have felt like I was on an episode of the Twilight Zone - if only I wasn't completely ignorant of that show too. I had similar experience with Beauty and the Beast - which I knew only as an old French film, directed by Jean Cocteau.
PS. Did you know that the lyrics of theme song for MASH ("Suicide Is Painless") were written by Robert Altman's then 14-year old son Mike, who made more money on royalties than his father did for directing the movie?
(Photos taken with iPhone 3GS)
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