Parking on Observatory Road. Griffith Park. September, 2012.
Clinging to First Glimpses
We spent the afternoon of our wedding anniversary visiting the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. If you’ve never been there, I encourage you to go. The entire facility bears testimony to our God-given curiosity, drive to discover, powers of reason, inspiration, courage to explore, and generosity.
It’s a popular place, so you’re likely to park down the road, then walk up the hill. It’s a beautiful, dusty, hot walk in the summertime, but as you approach the observatory, you come around a corner and there, up on the hill across the way, an icon is suddenly in view: the famous “Hollywood” sign.
Hollywood Sign, Antenna Farm, Helicopter.
My dear husband, Rich, dropped me off at the observatory, then went to park and hike alone. So while I waited for him, I observed–being as we were at the observatory and all. I noticed something interesting about the throngs of sightseers making their way up the hill:
Almost without exception, each group paused and jockeyed for a spot on the sidewalk’s edge to take a photo with the famous sign in the background. All the pausing and jockeying made for one clogged sidewalk; eventually people would spill onto the road, semicircling around the snapshotting crowd.
The pausing and jockeying interested me, because given the angle of the hills and the location of the observatory, it was obvious that the famous sign would be visible from other places on the property, too. You might expect that visitors would wait to choose the best place to shoot the iconic sign. In fact, just a few more yards ahead, a small plaza provides a wide expanse for photos, with the famous sign centrally and prominently centered on the opposite hillside.
Plaza Opposite Yellow Trucks at Right Behind Obelisk.
To be fair, a few people did snap photos from the plaza. And to be fair, here and there around the observatory, I spotted people taking pictures of the sign from other locations. But just about everybody stopped upon a first peek of the sign and snapped souvenirs there.
Woman in Blue Posing on Parapet.
It seemed that people couldn’t believe that something better might be coming.
Oh, yes. Something better is coming.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:14 (NASB)
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