Cali - Day 5

We were looking forward to going to Grace Community Church and hearing John MacArthur preach, but wouldn't you know, he was on vacation.  We were blessed by the message we did hear.

After church we had plans to go to Griffith Park.  It's a huge park with a Carousel, Travel Town, Griffith Park Observatory, and even the Los Angeles Zoo all located within different parts of the park. 
When I was a kid I used to enjoy going to Travel Town.  It has all sorts of old train cars that you could climb up in and check out.  The Los Angeles Live Steamers club also operates small scale live steam engines that you can ride on around a small track. 
Mary wasn't big enough to ride, so I stayed behind with her and took some photos.

Travel Town is free and the Live Steamers are donation only, however,
when we were greeted at the entrance window, the "suggested donation price" was stated in such a way that we didn't feel like we had much say in the amount.  That was a little disappointing as we had hoped for a frugal day at the park.

A lot has changed since I last visited.  They no longer allow you climb on the trains, except a couple of them.  I was hoping to get some fun, artsy photo shots of the older kids.   I did get a few fun ones.  

 

 

There was construction on the road which leads from the Travel Town area to the Observatory area so we had to take the long way around.  So did EVERYONE else.  Beautiful, sunny, mild weather beckons everyone to enjoy a day at the park.  The parking lot for the Observatory was full and the nearest parking from there was about a mile away up a narrow, winding, sloping road.  It would have meant carrying the little ones and all of us were pretty worn out.  We opted to skip the Observatory.  I was bummed because from there you get a terrific view of the Hollywood Sign {for free!} .
We never did find where the carousel was.

We decided to show the kids where we met some 26 years ago.  You can read our story here.
Yep, the Mobil gas station is still there. 

 

He will forever be my Knight in shining armor!

We headed back to the condo for an early supper.  That was the first evening that we chilled in front of the T.V.  We were all pretty happy to hit the sack early!