Hollywood Blvd & the El Capitan Theater

Last Saturday evening, we saw The Jungle Book at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood. As we've mention previously, the El Capitan is owned by Disney. They were showing Jungle Book in honour of the 40th anniversary of its release. It was a lot of fun to see an old school Disney film, released long before we were born, on the big screen.

Since we were going to be out in Hollywood for the evening we decided to go a bit early and take some pictures of the area landmarks. The picture of us was taken at the mall. They have a few walkways that are open towards the Hollywood sign so tourists can take pictures. The little white line on the hill in the background is the HOLLYWOOD sign. We decided another, zoomed in, picture was necessary so that people could actually read it.
Attached to the mall is the Kodak Theater, home of the Academy Awards. We should also mention that Hollywood Blvd is lined with buskers and impersonators. This picture of the Kodak Theater is complete with a Snoopy, Batman, Hulk, Paratrooper and Darth Vader.

While walking around we kept our eyes on the ground for any stars of interest. We came across a few that were picture-worthy, but thought it fitting to put the picture of Mickey's star here.
The very orange picture (below) of a man playing the organ was taken in the El Capitan, just before the show started. He plays every night, entertaining waiting patrons with a medley of various Disney songs. The audience even sings along with the more familiar tunes.

Garden Update

This is the latest picture of the green pepper you met in our last garden post. Since then he has at least doubled in size and, at the rate he's growing, should be ready to eat sometime before Christmas.

In other news, our lone tomato finally ripened. Here we have the last known portrait taken before his untimely, yet delicious, death at the hands of an avacado... mmm, guacamole.

Beach Photo's

Two weeks ago, on a windy Monday afternoon, I decided to go to the beach for a couple hours and take some pictures. It took about 10 minutes to drive there and, after parking, I bought a Cafe Mocha at the local coffee shop before picking a nice spot to sit on the sand. There were lots of large waves breaking against the pier, sailboats passing in the distance and other people out enjoying the sand and sun. Thought I'd share a few of the edited versions for your perusing. Hope you enjoy!! :D

Our Little Friend

This little guy was eating a pine cone in a nearby tree yesterday (and dropping large chunks of it onto the walkway below). Lindsay went out to take some pictures of him and he came right down to a branch in front of our balcony to see what she was doing.

Rhythm & Hues

We've never posted a picture of Tim's work. So, without further ado, we present...

Tim leaving work for the dayThe uncomfortable expression on his face is due to the appearance
of a number of coworkers while taking this picture.

Labour Day Weekend

Friday evening we got some take-out from Panera Bread and went down to the beach for a picnic supper. We arrived in time to see the sunset. It was very nice.

Didn't do much on Sabbath or Sunday, just swimming, sunning and some shopping.
We went for a hike on Monday in Solstice Canyon. We had intended to get there to hike in the morning but, well, we're not really morning people and by the time we battled traffic it was noon before we started the hike. (Doesn't the rock in the picture on the right (above) look like a hawk?)

We decided to take the moderate-rated Rising Sun Trail in to the waterfalls. My goodness, was it ever hot. The moderate trail took us up the side of the canyon (which the map didn't indicate) and then back down again (the up seemed a lot longer). The sun was just beating down on us. There were no tall trees on the hill to provide shade and there was only a slight breeze. We could feel the heat bouncing back off the ground onto our legs. It was like an oven. Lindsay nearly died (note veins in forehead on picture above).

When we got to the waterfall we sat on a rock by the stream and dipped our tired feet while eating lunch. While we were sitting there, we noticed a snake slithering in the rocks not too far away. At first we thought it was a Coral Snake, which is poisonous, but we looked it up when we got home and found out that it was just a California Mountain King Snake, which isn't poisonous. We have pictures, but didn't post them to save Lindsay's mom's heart.

When we were done eating and had exhausted the photo opportunities in the area we headed back to the car - this time taking the easy (paved and shaded) path.
Along the way, we came across a tree that had a colony of bee's living in it. It reminded us of Pooh's honey tree.

Just a note: If you click on the pictures you can see larger versions of them.