"Look to my right, and I see the Hollywood sign"

Today was the end of our career immersion part of the trip and the day of Jenny's arrival. We had breakfast for the first time at our hotel. It was pretty good food, but the service was not quite up to par. Deb and I hung out at the hotel after everyone else departed for the airport. We just stayed in the open courtyard awaiting for word from Jenny that she was close. We checked in to our other accommodations with a little arguing with the manager who wanted to change things at the last minute, but it all worked out in the end.

Today's adventure involved going to the Hollywood sign. Now the base of the trail you climb is approximately 3 miles from our hotel, so we walked that. Right as we arrived at the entrance to the trail Deb veered off to climb a separate hill she took an interest in. As Jenny and I climbed this large hill, the sun began to set rapidly so I told Jenny to run on ahead and I would meet her there. Little did I know the adventure this would ensue. Later on in the trail I hit a v and I wondered why Jenny had not waited to inform me which direction she went. I realized that I had Jenny's bag and she had mine and my phone was in my bag. I searched her bag, but alas found no phone. As I stand perplexed at the v in the road I consider the two options: the first is to stay on the front of the mountain, but go down and the second is to go up but go what appears to be behind the Hollywood sign. Neither of these options seem like the correct choice, but I decide to take the path that continues going up, reasoning that maybe it wraps around. After hiking for a while I have officially gone on the other side of the mountain and can now see out to the other side of the city. The sun is almost complete set, and I reason that the next person I see I will ask to borrow their phone and call my phone to find out where the other two are. I do not see anyone else on the hill and it has become completely dark. Needless to say I start to worry a little bit as I climb up this mountain, in the dark, with no phone, and no idea if I am going the correct way. Suddenly I hear a phone ring so I move things around inside Jenny's purse in search of it and find it in a hidden compartment. I answer, but her phone has seen better days and that is no easy task now, and the service goes out (we are up a mountain on what we find out to be opposite sides). I eventually get a signal and call back to find she is on the other side of the mountain and has found Deb and they are perplexed as to where I am but they think they know where I might have went so they are heading that way. I decide to continue up the mountain ans I have reached the side and it looks like it will wrap around and I will hit the Hollywood sign, perhaps both paths come to the sign just from different directions. I reach the end of the path with a tall telephone tower type structure and look below me to see the Hollywood sign is in fact underneath me; I had climbed the entire way up the hill and over the sign. I call Deb and Jenny back and tell them, to their shock, that I am above the sign.

We did eventually meet up and I took them to the top of the sign, as their path never actually took you to the sign. It is completely night before this point so we take pictures, but the lighting was not very good. We even venture up a little mound to take more pictures and look out at the city, before we embark on the trip down the hill and back to the hotel.

On the way back we decided to find food and we ended up going to the Hard Rock Cafe again for dinner. Being pretty exhausted we crashed after that.
photos from today