Link to Hollywood and Pasadena Facebook Pictures

We woke up around 11 and headed out of San Diego.  We bid farewell to Matt, and only ended up leaving one item at his apartment accidently (Molly’s orange towel).  Oh well!!  We started driving toward Molly’s friend Reera’s apartment – she lives in Pasadena.  The GPS took us on I-5, but I quickly decided to try and find the 101.  The 101 is more of a local, scenic byway which runs right up the coast.  I found it, and we sat through about 30 minutes of driving on it before we decided to get back on the interstate.  You could still see the Pacific Ocean from the interstate, and I think the 1 will be a good coastal highway to take from here on out. 

Pasadena is located northeast of Los Angeles.  We drove through two rough spots on the interstates, where traffic was really backed up.  I think I didn’t experience the full effect of the LA rush hour, because it’s a weekend and the two times we were delayed were due to accidents.  It was still a good long wait, though.  And here, motorcycles will literally drive in between the cars when traffic is stopped.  Sometimes you hear them, sometimes you don’t.  It’s kind of frightening to know that you could decide to make a slow lane change at the wrong moment and really ruin one of those guy’s days.

We made it to Reera’s apartment in Pasadena and we were able to find curbside parking immediately, which was a nice change from San Diego.  I think it’s because we’re in a more residential area – not directly inside the city.  We hung out at her apartment for a bit – watched some Netflix and ordered some pizzas for lunch.  Molly and I decided to go check out the Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills, and that whole area in general.  We hopped in my car and took off for the sign.

I read online that a popular viewing point for the Hollywood sign is an observatory, called the Griffith Observatory.  We drove there and when we were about 2 miles away, the car became lined on both sides with cars.  It’s hard to know where you are and aren’t allowed to curb park, but so far the color system has helped a bunch.  They have the curbs painted red where you absolutely can’t park, blue for handicapped spaces (I believe), and there are pretty visible signs everywhere.  I am still paranoid each time I come back to my car, though.  I keep thinking I will find a ticket underneath one of the windshield wipers, or it will have magically disappeared altogether.

We managed to find a pretty good parking spot, and only had to walk about five minutes to get up to the observatory.  Once there, we realized that we were still pretty damn far from the Hollywood sign.  The pictures that we tried to take didn’t come out that great, and we wanted to get a better vantage point.  There was a trail which began in the parking lot, and did switchbacks, leading up to the top of the mountain adjacent to the one the Hollywood sign is on.  We hiked up this trail for about 15 minutes or so, until we had a slightly better view of the sign and a MUCH better view of the surrounding city-scape.  We took some pictures, then headed back down to the car. 

Molly found another address to punch into the GPS.  The GPS led us through narrow, windy, and VERY hilly roads up toward the sign.  We were driving through mainly residential areas, but the inclines were intense.  I opted to turn off my car’s A/C and roll down the windows so it would have less trouble pushing up those hills.  The GPS took us right to a scenic overlook, where we were able to get much better pictures with the sign.

After that, I punched in “Beverly Hills” into the GPS, just to see where it would take us.  It was getting dark at this point, but we still got to drive around Beverly Hills while there was some light out.  I’m not sure I went down the best streets, but you could definitely tell that the area had some money behind it.  We didn’t drive in any of the famous residential areas around there – if you have any suggestions as to where to drive / what to see in the area, please let me know and we’ll try to go tomorrow.  We were on Hollywood Boulevard for a moment, and might check that out more tomorrow as well.  Since it was dark, we decided to head back to the apartment, but made a quick stop at the Rose Bowl to snap a few pictures.  Now we’re back and going to settle in for the night!!  Tomorrow we will continue the adventure and keep heading up the coast, through the next of our destinations.