The hill are ablaze

With the sound of... Crackling flames?

Our simple aim for today was to get some Modest Mouse and Sonic Youth tix for the Greek Theatre, situated in the Hollywood Hills within Griffith Park. Aha, we thought. We could expose the dog (oh dear, this and the other blogs are turning into doggy-bloggies...) to more sights and sounds as part of her socialisation routine. Get her used to being distracted by pseudo-wildlife, but in a controlled manner in the process of a short hike up Mt Hollywood sort of thing. (Yes, it's really called Mt. Hollywood.)

Trying to avoid the heat of being under the midday sun, we thought we'd set out early-ish. At least early for us on a Saturday. Which would have gone fine if we'd been to bed a few hours earlier than 4am. (I blame Pedro Almodovar; his latest film Volver had us glued to our seats from midnight till 2am because the DVD just came out and it's hard to go to sleep after such an emotionally-engaging movie.) But clever little D made some PB+J sandwiches so we could breakfast at the park, irrespective of finding an open cafe.

So, all's well. We're loaded up in the car, hurtling along the 405, 101 (which can turn into the 134 if you use the right spell and the planets are in alignment),: road names that are incomprehensible to non-angelinos (even if you don't drive in LA, everyone complains so bitterly about freeways like the 405, 101, 110 and the 10 so much that you know all about them even if you never see them). We arrive through the north entrance of Griffith Park as part of our allegedly clever ploy to avoid the congested streets south of the park. All's going well. We turn down Mt. Hollywood Drive because our map shows it'll lead us straight to the roads for Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theatre. We stupidly ignore signs that say "no-thru traffic" because I don't like the way they spell "through" here, and we are clueless foreigners who don't watch the local news (no TV) and don't venture out of Westside very much.

So, we climb uphill/mountain, and we see the (in)famous Hollywood sign (which we found out after getting home was nearly the inflam-ous Hollywood sign) and a heck of a lot of people on foot and on bicycles. We see dogs, but our dog is strapped in and sitting calmly, so we're fine. We see a young coyote, but our dog is strapped in, hyperventilating, but strapped in, so we're fine. Then we get to the bottom of the hill/mountain, where a very nice, solid candy cane barrier awaits us. Aha. Revelation. No-thru road signs mean what they say. Which we suspected, but were too belary-eyed to pay much heed to.

Not much lost, except patience all round. Bugger this all for a game of soldiers. Or, at least, a picnic in one of the rest-stops. Where we learn our dog can be a stubborn wee cow about sniffing out every last mole under the grass. Yes dear, we see the molehills and know they excite your "prey-drive" (someone's been reading too many dog behaviour websites), but let's move on cos we're starving and coffee-deprived at that. But it turns out that however disastrous our start to the day in the park was, however annoyed we were about the lack of time for hiking, the right thing to do was just to expose her to all these new sights and smells by just sitting calmly for some time. She was fairly calmly with with off-leash dogs trotting obediently by, but that was more good behaviour by the other dogs than her. And she watched, with great interest, horses also trotting by and was as calm as we can expect from her even when one particularly recalcitrant horse was re-saddled about 50m in front of her. We even watched a gopher/gerbil/small-hamster-like-creature* stick its head out of its burrow multiple times to harvest some grass in its hamster-like cheeks (so, not moles then... more like gophers out of Caddyshack).

All very uninteresting to regular folk, but a major achievement in our growing relationship with our four-year old mutt who behaves like a one-year old puppy sometimes. We took her out. We brough her back. Safely. Step one in getting her to trust us for the eventuality of many hikes, be they in the US of A, or back home where horses, cows and sheep abound.

We even managed to get those tickets for Modest Mouse and Sonic Youth. Hurrah! Two things checked off the list today then. I'm guessing the through-road was barred because of the possible heavy-traffic headed for the newly-reopened Observatory, for which we learned one needs to reserve a parking space online in advance. (No doubt we'd have found that out before if we hadn't been so captivated by Volver). No matter. You want the Box Office? Do a U-turn; you can park in front of the Box Office. Cool beans.

Now, the journey home? That's a whole 'nother saga. But I'm still too traumatised to talk about that...

*I don't think it was a gopher; too small. Maybe someone's escaped hamster?