signage, take two

after the successful hike a couple of weeks ago up to the hollywood sign with my friends, i decided that the teen and i needed to do it together.  she and rock-ell had unsuccessfully attempted to drive up to it a few months ago, and so i thought that it would be a fun idea to get them both out there. 

there was much grumbling and griping, but in the end i prevailed, and 8am on a saturday morning found us in the car, driving under cloudy skies towards griffith park.  it was drizzling on us as we left the house, and i was afraid i'd end up having to turn back.  but as we continued west, it cleared up nicely and we even saw the sun peeking out now and then.  phew.

because the weather wasn't as perfect as it had been the week before, it was much less crowded as we parked and began the adventure.  and like the last time, we did the warm-up hike up to the "batman" caves before the big climb.

so...yeah, somehow it seemed like a rougher hike this time around.  i'm not sure why.  i wasn't sore anymore from the first time, but it just felt like the hill was steeper than before.  heh.  and it was amusing to watch the teen lead the charge, striding confidently ahead of us as rock-ell and i huffed and puffed our way up.

as we finally turned a corner and came upon the fence that told us we were almost at the sign, i noticed something interesting - more cameras had been installed in the week since my last trip up.  look - before:

and now:

iiiiiiiiinteresting.

we climbed up the last little hill to admire the view and savor the fruits of our labor.  there was a group of giggly teenaged girls there who were blissfully hogging the best spot and taking picture after picture after picture, ignoring the growing crowd of people patiently waiting their turns to capture their own ascent to the top.  i was just hoping the teen and rock-ell wouldn't throw them all off the mountain in their irritation.

they didn't, and we finally got our turns:

we celebrated our awesome hiking expedition with a trip to both starbucks and mcdonald's.  chicken mcnuggets never tasted so good.  oh, and i might have also savored a delicious seasonal treat as well...it's shamrock shake time again!

mmmmm.  minty.

rock-ell isn't used to such activity and claims to have been sore for days afterwards.  i, on the other hand, recovered much quicker this time around.  and the teen doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects - in fact, we've got plans to do another hike this weekend!

we'll see if we can drag rock-ell to this one.  it may very well be some good teen bonding time, just the two of us.  we can make it if we try.