Last September,one of my travel
wishes came true.
I took a work trip to Hollywood.
I was off to LA-LA land -
home of the stars!
I was elated. I have always wanted
to take that trip.
And better yet, some of my wonderful
work friends also came along.
As one might imagine, I quickly
created an intinerary of all the
must-see places in LA.
At the top of my list?
Griffith Park Observatory.
This fabulous place has been featured
in Hollywood films, and is
the best place to take in a view
of downtown Los Angeles.
After working all day
I,along with my friends Tracy and Adam,
hailed a cab and headed off to
the observatory.
As the taxi snaked it's way through
Griffith Park and up the winding, canyon drive, the driver assured us
that all we needed to do was call
the cab company
when we were ready to leave.
No problem.
First things first: we got in line
to view a constellation through the huge telescope.
We waited. And waited.
We took some pictures to pass the time.
Finally, we saw the constellation!
And yes, I kinda had that feeling of,
"I waited in line for this?".
But it was awesome, nonetheless.
I must say, the view of LA was
Since it was nearly 10:00pm
and the place was closing,
we called for our cab.
No problem.
We waited. And waited. The parking lot
started emptying...quickly.
We waited some more.
We called again. Cabbie said he was waiting.
Where? At the bottom of that long, winding hill.
Why? The gate to the park was closed.
After a moment of panic, I noticed an empty
Park Ranger vehicle. Surely they
would take us down the hill, I said.
Or, maybe we should just run down
the hill.
Oh yes, let's run down the hill.
It wasn't that long of a drive up, right?
We started running.
Only, my companions were jogging.
Me? I was sprinting.
I heard Tracy yell that I'd better
slow down or I'd fall
and knock my teeth out.
I thought that knocking my teeth out
would be better than being accosted by
a serial killer hiding in the woods.
At one point, I stopped and realized my
companions were a bit farther back than I thought.
As I waited, rocks fell from the ledge
above my head.
I heard something move in the bushes.
Now, this was most likely a rabbit.
But in my mind it was only one thing.
"Mountain lion!", I screamed to my friends.
And we all started sprinting.
None of us remembered that the road
through the canyon was neary
3 miles long.
Tracy, fearing the worst (think most
horrible, graphic Law and Order SVU episode),
tried to flag down cars that were passing
us on their way down the canyon.
It took quite a bit of convincing
(and yelling)
from Adam and I that THAT
was NOT a GOOD IDEA.
We were in California, at 10:30 at night,
in a canyon. I would
rather take my chances with the
mountain lions.
After about 30 minutes, we saw the lights
of the Griffith Park neighborhood
in the distance.
We had made it!
But wait. Where was our cab?
Cabbie, I'm sure assuming we had died
on the way down, had left.
We called for another cab.
The first thing this cabbie said to us?
"The park ranger would have given you a
ride down. They do it all the time."
Great.
If we thought our adventure was over,
we were mistaken.
We were in the death cab.
The ride back to the hotel
was more terrifying than anything.
For one brief second, as we
swerved to avoid a telephone pole,
I saw my life
flash before my eyes.
We had survived Griffith Park at night
only to be killed in a cab accident.
Needless to say,
we felt pretty lucky once we
were safely back on solid ground.
And we celebrated our survival with
milkshakes at Mel's Drive-In.
