Sunday morning started with a trip to the Japanese Garden. I had already been rebuffed on two separate occasions by the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant and so I was ready to be wowed. I was thoroughly underwhelmed. Most of the vegetation was struggling to keep it’s green, and there didn’t seem to be much variation – but then nothing was in bloom.

The only cool thing was the concrete main building contrasting with the greenery. The main building was suspended over the water and had open parts of the floor so you could see (from several feet above) the plentiful (although drably colored) fish swimming about.

I thought next we would tackle the “rough” way up to the top of Mt. Hollywood. When we arrived at Griffith Park it became clear that some things had changed since my last visit. Instead of driving right up to the base of the trail we had to park a good three quarters of a mile back down the mountain. Apparently the Observatory is now open to walk-in general public (previously you had to take a metro bus from the LA Zoo), leading to a massive glut of cars piling up on the drive up to Mt. Hollywood Trail.

Once on the trial things didn’t get better. A massive fire had burnt down 99% of the vegetation (although it actually improved the view) and everything was covered in a yellow mulch/seed combination. Further dissapointment came when I saw hazard markers by the “rough” trail that I planned to climb. So, we took the 1.38 mile fire road to the top (and back). The top was strange, completely obliterated – like a yellow desert on top of Los Angeles. The view was not as muddled by the remnants of the Malibu Thanksgiving Fires as I feared – but the day was still very overcast.

Since the climb had taken much longer than I’d anticipated we were all now very hungry and lunch slid into dinner. We went to Don Cucos. Afterwards Beverly joined with my father and myself to watch American Gangster.