It was hard getting up from sleep on the nice air mattress, but I could tell the weather was really nice outside. Mary had been up for a while, stepping over us in the living room. I had some cereal for breakfast and we left our stuff there to pick up later so we didn't have to leave it in the car all day.
We took directions from a website to find the Hollywood sign trailhead, but we walked the wrong way at first somehow and got pretty far off before we realized we were off track. We came back and realized the road we were supposed to take was right by the car. I really like this sign though.
After an initially very steep hike up the hill we reached a plateau with a single tree overlooking the city. We hung out there for a minute, taking in the view and writing in the journal that sits under the tree.
The path climbed gently after that, rolling over the spine of the hills. We could see the radio tower that I recognize from so many times I've seen the Hollywood sign in movies and photos. The heat wasn't so overpowering once we got up there and weren't climbing such steep sides anymore.
The city skyline was in view here, but the famous LA smog was obscuring it. I actually like the shot of it like this because it's representative of the culture here.
In other directions there are wide views of the LA basin for miles. We continued along the top of the path for a while before it dropped back down on the other side and ended at the "Hugh Hefner Overlook." That's Hollywood.
We took a short road up along a chain link fence with people scattered around looking at the view. It's amazing that something so out of the way and mundane attracts such a crowd.
The sign itself was just about exactly as I thought it would be. I knew we couldn't get down to it, but the urge grew in me just by being there. We thought about asking one of the landscapers to let us go down there, but we waited too long. We did some feet shots on the fence and I did the best I could to crop out the unwanted parts. Once Joanna was tired of clinging to metal we headed back up and over the ridge to the car.
We went downtown to a place called Real Food Daily for lunch. We were in sweaty hiking clothes, but we didn't care that everyone else looked pretty nice. Joanna went with the nachos, but I had to try their reuben. It was pretty good, but no Chicago Diner. I was still pretty happy with my meal since I was super hungry. After eating we went back to Mary's to pack up our stuff and headed east toward Las Vegas.
The one place I wanted to go was Tenaya Creek Brewing in North Las Vegas. After searching for vegan pizza and failing miserable several times, ending up walking all the way down Fremont Street through the freaks and performers, then finding the pizza place to only have one slice of expensive vegan pizza, we gave up. I got the really cool flight of beer at Tenaya, which is my favorite part of it. Some of the beers weren't as good as I recall, but the Tandem Double IPA and Old Jackalope Barleywine were both great.
I was checking in on Untappd to all of my beers, prompting one of the guys that work in the brewery to come out and see who was drinking so much. He talked to us for a while, revealing himself as a fellow traveler. After telling him about our trip he offered us a place to stay for the night. We were quick to take him up on the offer, but we later reconsidered and wanted to get out of town instead of staying around drinking until dawn.
We went back to the strip to get some food at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and then went to take foot photos by Paris and the Bellagio. We got some cool shots. We headed out of town and picked up Route 93 into Arizona. After searching a few places in the National Forest we ended up putting up a tent alongside a rest area parking lot. It was really warm already, but we were so tired we put up the tent on autopilot and passed out.
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