Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Next up on the California tour is the city of Angels. Jacob and I were in Los Angeles in September for the Taylor Hawkins concert and were pleasantly surprised with how much we enjoyed the city. We both said at the time that we wanted to take the kids – and here we are.

We had a terrible forecast for our time in LA so we made the most of our first and only sunny day. We managed to hit almost all of the “must sees” and had a fantastic day. On the top of almost every list was a stop at Griffith observatory. I would like to say it’s the nature of this trip – we are essentially constantly planning long-weekend/week long trips that has led to minimal research but I think it might just be the way we travel. At no point in our planning did we look at what exactly Griffith observatory was, what the surrounding area was like, or how busy it would be. We have also been spoiled traveling in the off season that most of the “it gets crowded, arrive early” warnings haven’t applied. Not this time.

Turns out Griffith observatory is set at the top of this massive hill that overlooks LA. It’s a popular weekend park with loads of walks, picnic and play areas. There are dedicated parking lots for the actual observatory – that are completely full if you plan on rocking up at 11:30 on a sunny Saturday. So instead of bothering to park we did a little drive by instead. On our way back down we managed to score a perfect parking spot right next to the playground.

We left Griffith park and wound our way through the hills to lake Hollywood park. We took the side streets which ended up being really cool. There are all these houses that are tucked into impossible spaces with tiny twisting little roads. We caught glimpses of the iconic sign before we made it to the park which just made the drive even better.

After explaining to the kids what the Hollywood sign actually was we had to then explain what the walk of stars was. We are quickly realizing that what we consider to be pop culture is now for old people. We took a walk down the walk of fame, stopped for a snack at the Dolby theatre and took a quick look at Graumans where we had to try and explain who all the actors were. We wrapped up our day with a quick roll down Rodeo in the minivan and headed for home.