Burning calories hiking and putting them back on with pies
Yeah, so I didn't manage to keep the one post a day thing going. I got far too sunburned -- a story I shall tell when I get around to posting photos from Mexico City -- and was far too busy eating food to make myself feel better. You only get one life, people.
Back at the ranch (LA) though...
The next day we took advantage of the nice weather and headed to Griffith Park to hike to the observatory, along with seemingly every other Angeleno. The days Ian and I had landed were the nicest so far of the year, so it was unsurprising that so many other people had had the same thought of going for a scenic walk as we had.
The hike up to the top of the hill was relatively simple compared to finding parking and corralling all our friends to finally leave campus.
Even as we approached, the brilliantly white Griffith Observatory was impressive. I'd been expecting what's a massive tourist attraction to be kind of run down and a bit grimy, but was genuinely surprised to see how gleaming and clean the whole plateau area was.
Maybe they'd decided to keep it looking spick and span for all the post-La La Land traffic they anticipated.
In all seriousness though, the general cleanliness and freshness of the West Coast is one of my favourite things about it. Granted I've only visited a few spots, but so far the trend remains.
We didn't attempt the multiple hour hike that would've taken us to the Hollywood sign, and as we'd spent the past 24 hours staring at it from campus, we figured we'd gotten our share of its beauty, even if from afar.
Still, we admired it while we were up there.
There were even some other Bostonians visiting the Observatory. We could tell by the Red Sox hat, poorly fitting shorts, and "Saturdays are for the boys" Barstool Sports shirt.
I also shot several of our friends impending engagement photos.
And a rare photo of me was taken!
Not before I fixed Ian's hat hair though.
After we rolled our way back down the hill, we ventured to get some dessert in Hollywood to replenish any calories we may have accidentally burned on our hike. Lia's friend Katie had recommended a bunch of places to me, but one of the most exciting was Pie Hole - an all pie restaurant.
Not to do things buy halves, four of us split six stunning slices of pie. Apple, chocolate, maple, and a hot shepherd's pie (because Emily wanted a semblance of a proper lunch). Then Jack and I went back for seconds, and had a Mexican chocolate, and a cereal killer pie, which I snapped a photo of. Everything else disappeared too quickly.
