At long last I finally went out for a backpack trip
I went for an overnight in the Los Padres with some nice people I met on Reddit /r/Ultralight. We did the Lost Valley, Hurricane Deck, Whiteledge, Manzana loop. Two of us did it as an overnight. One of us decided to go see the upper Sisquoc and make it a 2 night trip. One of us just did a there-and-back on Lost Valley.
We experienced a little of everything. Hot temps, long heavy water carries, drying things by a camp fire, rain, 20 mile days, cup cakes and cocktails.