On the Road and In Your Backyard

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

Please keep all those folks in Florida, Cuba, and the Caribbean in mind and prayer. There’s a lot of misery and destruction to recover from. I believe that our front pagers in Florida are doing ok, and I’ve not read of any commenters in peril. I hope that remains the case!

Folks, in light of Irma, I decided not to write up “my 9/11 story”; perhaps another time. Let’s keep in mind those who were victims, heroes, and first responders (who are dying at alarming rates due to exposure to horrible chemicals and materials), and all of their families. And all the people killed, and their families, due to our “use the attack as justification to invade Iraq”. So much misery and death, spawned by 19 terrorists.

 

Have a good day, let’s hope that Bill’s great pictures and accompanying narrative is just what you need to help set the week up right!

Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.

Behind the Hollywood Sign

There’s probably not a more recognizable sight in Los Angeles than the iconic Hollywood Sign(LA City Hall might come close ). The sign was originally built in the early 20’s on Mt. Lee(it’s not on Mt. Hollywood, that’s just north of Griffith Observatory) as and advertisement for the “Hollywoodland” development in the hills directly below the sign. It was not the only sign in the area with the Outlook sign that was further to the west across Cuhuenga Pass and both were lit up at night! After it’s advertising purpose was served the sign began to fall into disrepair with the “land” portion of the sign falling off. In the mid 1970’s the rest of the sign was also beginning to fall down as well(probably a metaphor for Hollywood as well, which had become pretty seedy). There was a big fundraising drive to rebuild the sign, since it had become a symbol of Hollywood(embodying the film industry) and Los Angeles itself. The raised enough funds(mainly due to the work of Hugh Hefner) and rebuilt the sign, replacing the wood with steel and adding additional support so the rest of the sign wouldn’t go the way of the “land” portion.

So how do you get to the Hollywood Sign? First off, you can’t actually go to the Sign, it’s fenced off with security cameras and the LAPD is ready to greet you if you try to scale the fence. However you can hike up the hill(Mt. Lee) above the sign; but that can be a bit tricky too, mainly due to the residents of Hollywoodland, who don’t care much for folk treking through their neighborhood leaving trash and worse. They’re pretty wealthy up there and have quite a bit of political power, so they’ve put up some obstacles. If you ask Google Maps for “Hollywood Sign” it will take you to Griffith Observatory, where you can see a nice view of the sign but it’s not the location OF THE SIGN. Until recently, you’d be able to go up Beachwood Canyon Drive and park(though you had to be mindful of the parking regulations) and hike up past the horse stables; but they welded shut that route a few months ago. You can also approach from the east using a trail off Mt. Hollywood Dr. or hiking up from Bronson Canyon(my first hike up there used this approach, though from a trailhead close to the zoo). There’s also a more rustic route from the west, starting near Hollywood Reservoir climbing to Burbank Peak, then east to Caheunga Peak and then to Mt. Lee. There’s one more route that just goes up Mt. Lee Drive, there’s a locked gate where the it enters the residential neighborhood but there’s a foot path that goes under an arch. I’ve not seen much on-line about this route, but it’s the route I took on my return for this hike.

Gates to Hollywoodland

Taken on 2016-08-30

Hollywoodland, Los Angeles, CA

Every upscale development needs some nice gates, right? Hollywoodland is no exception. This is the gate on the east side, there’s another on the west side of Beachwood Canyon Drive.

Verdugo Hills

Taken on 2016-08-30

Griffith Park, Los Angeles, CA

This is Verdugo Hills taken from Mt Lee Drive where the recent La Tuna fire was. The fire was in the hills in the left half of the picture. The city in the left half of the photo is Burbank, the city in the right portion if Glendale. The grassy area in the lower left is Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills.

Downtown Los Angeles from Mt. Lee

Taken on 2016-08-30

Mt. Lee, Los Angeles, CA

View to the southeast from Mt. Lee. From left to right you see: Mt. Hollywood, Griffith Observatory, Downtown Los Angeles, and mid-Wilshire. At the bottom of the picture you can see a portion of the back of the Hollywood sign and the fence that surrounds it.

Mt. Lee is not named after the Civil War General, it’s named after Don Lee who had an auto dealership and had branched out into broadcasting. The towers you seen in pictures of the Hollywood Sign are where he set up a studio and broadcast facility on the top of the mountain. It’s now owned by the City of Los Angeles and used for city communications.

Hollywood Reservoir from Mt. Lee

Taken on 2016-08-30

Mt. Lee, Los Angeles, CA

You can see a portion of the Hollywood sign in the lower left corner. To the left of Hollywood Reservoir you can see the buildings of Hollywood itself. The hills that you can faintly see due to the marine layer is the Baldwin Hills and to the right of them you can faintly see the outlines of the buildings in West LA. The dam that creates Hollywood Reservoir is called the Mulholland Dam and had a twin in the Saint Francis dam that ruptured and killed over 60 people in the Santa Clara river valley north of Los Angeles.

Fisheye view of the back of the Hollywood Sign

Taken on 2016-08-30

Mt. Lee, Los Angeles, CA

One of the reasons I took this second visit to the Sign is to take picutres with my better camera and I had just bought my fisheye lens.

The Hollywood Sign

Taken on 2016-08-30

Hollywoodland, Los Angeles, CA

This is my favorite picture of the Sign that I’ve taken. You can see the summit of Mt. Lee right above the first “L” and it’s nicely framed with the Hollywoodland neighborhood below it.

Saroyan Stairs

Taken on 2016-08-30

Hollywoodland, Los Angeles, CA

Not just in Hollywoodland, but thoughout the older neighborhoods in Los Angeles, you will find stairs up the hills. The Red and Yellow cars ran in the valley areas and there were these stairs that went up the hills between people’s houses to get up to the next street*. There are whole books about all the hidden stairs in Los Angeles. These stairs originally had water flowing down the center but that was taken out and it’s now a planter.

*Probably the most famous of these stairs are the “Music Box Steps” that were in a Laurel and Hardy film.

 

Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

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