Day off Day 2 Griffith Park - Soup and more

Another day off in southland....tomorrow things get busy again! We got to sleep-in late and once again there was no coffee for me in the lobby. Since we had no real schedule today we got a late start after I spent time checking phone messages from the office, emails, etc. I also tried to start my California taxes (did my federal a few weeks back). Can you believe the Cali tax form is three pages long (front, back and another page)? But I gave up when the instructions told me to add line 40 and 27 together to get the answer for line 47....there was no line 40????????????/ Frustrated, I put things away and we headed out to Griffith Park in the Hollywood Hills. This is my buddy JC's favorite place (next to being next to his wife). It's wonderfully beautiful there. You can see the entire LA Valley. And there is a lot of great trails and wild life. You can also see the SMOG (you know what smog means don't you.....it's a mixture of two words...a small hog!) The best time to drive LA freeways is after 10AM and before 4PM . It was a smooth drive in and we really enjoyed the sights. I think the best area to live if you have to life in SoCal is off the 210 along the northern part of the valley. Hiking, running, exploring, climbing, and general frolicking was the name of the game for everyone but me. I stayed in the van and worked on my taxes. I finally figured out that whole this line that line thing. I also worked on parts of our up coming summer tour and made a few calls. Before I was done the kids dropped Belle off with me who enjoyed a whole glass of water. Then they headed into the Observatory and checked out science. (Pictures below). By the time they had enough of all that learning and playing it was close to 2pm and we headed down into the valley, through Hollywood, over to Beverly Hills to enjoy another one of my friend JC's favorite spots, the Soup Plantation. The kids loved it. Giant salad bar followed by all the soup, pizza, ice cream, etc you can eat. Lots of drink choices too. It was fantastic. We all rolled back to the van then back to the hotel for R & R from our day off. At the hotel the coffee pot was once again empty. So I walked down to Burger King and got some joe. We are vegging now in front of the TV....well, mostly. Amelia has just started reading the Bible to Olivia and I just over heard them praying....very cool. For dinner we had PB and J sandwiches. Those too were very nice. I want to say something about last night. I have to say I am so very lucky to have friends like Gordon Wong. I mean we haven't seen each other since High School (we had gone to kindergarten through high school together). Still when he visited us at the fair a couple of days ago he brought hot wings, cookies, mandarins, etc. I told him in a conversation on the phone or email that we were pepper heads and we loved our wings. So he remembered that and brought us wings. Wow! Then last night he took us out to dinner. He picked up the tab to my chagrin.(I wanted to pay but he did it when I wasn't paying attention....my fault!) His kids had monster homework so we couldn't meet them. But his wife (a knockout, by the way), joined us after her busy day at work. They make a fantastic couple and are so generous and kind. They are two very mutually blessed people to have each other. Oh, and Gordon brought us Thai chills because I had told him about a family challenge we have with them. Nick tried to beat my 9 pepper record but crammed 16 or 17 into his mouth at one time. Doesn't count.... You have to don one at a time and show your mouth empty after each....we will do the record this week. He also brought us some hot chili pepper sauce. What a guy! By the way he can't stand hot peppers. I almost forgot. The Soup Plantation recognized us as new customers so they brought us four nice sized cookie package gifts. Our dessert tonight.