My friend Jen needed to get out of the house so Katie, Heather, Cindy and I took her up to Griffith Observatory on Saturday. I would just about say that if you're visiting this fair city and you're going to see just one thing, this should be it. The building is spectacular, the views are incredible, at night they point the telescope at some beautiful celestial object, it's free, and it's all about outer space. If the parking weren't an abysmal nightmare it would be perfect. We attempted to get up the hill but the line of cars was so long that we turned around and parked down at the entrance to Griffith Park and took the shuttle up.
It was so beautiful up there. We saw the Tesla coil fire up, learned about why Pluto isn't a planet anymore (I'm not as broken up about this as you might think. You're still a great little icy object, Pluto. Don't get down about it.), and stood on the parapet and marveled at how lovely the city looked. And it was so clear we could practically see the buffalo roaming on Catalina Island (non-locals: that's very far away and we get a lot of coastal fog that normally blocks the view. And yes, there are actual buffalo up there, left over from a film shoot long ago.)
And now we have come to the part of the story that is REALLY INTRIGUING! As I mentioned we took the shuttle up but the line to take the shuttle down was so long that we decided to walk. It was a lovely day and it's just a little more than a mile downhill, easy. We all commented on how there were no cars coming up the road and how odd it seemed that on such a busy day and just a few hours before sunset the traffic had stopped. Then just before we got to our car we passed by a public bathroom at the entrance of the park and noticed that there was a small crowd of people and police tape around the building.
And then we saw the dead body. Yep, there was a dead body, covered, to our relief, but dead just the same. He was a tall man and his poor feet were sticking out from under the sheet. There was no ambulance, only a couple of police cars so it had to have just happened. The small crowd looked to be mostly curious teenagers and no one seemed particularly distraught which makes me think he was alone. There didn't seem to be any blood. Oh Knights of Columbus, if there had been blood....Was he homeless? A hiker enjoying the sunshine? Was he murdered? Did he have a bad heart? I can't stop thinking about him. I still don't know what happened. And I'm not sure I ever will because I learned the hard way that you should never google "dead body found in Griffith Park." Yeesh!
We drove out past the long line of cars trying to get in, none of them knowing that the police had blocked the road. But how do you let dozens of carloads of people know that the first 5 minutes of Law & Order is going on up ahead?
3 comments:
Oh too sad...poor you.
Three thoughts..1. Are you sure there weren't tv cameras around? 2. Poor Jen will never want to venture out with you again. 3. Were you with me when we were driving through LA late at night and we saw a man in the car with a woman over his shoulder…or something like that?
After all these years you have now had a true L.A. experience. Glad it was you and not me. I remember many nights of my dad getting paged because a dead body had been found and he'd have to get dressed and make his way to the scene. Good times.
Post a Comment