Griffith Park (Chap 2)

                           This is basically Griffith Park.  You will find the Griffith Observatory here.
                 (This image is not mine, it is from http://clarkblog.typepad.com/photos/la_sights/griffith_park.html.)

                    This is me at the Griffith Observatory. My friend and I hiked all the way up there.

     Griffith Park is my favorite park to visit here in Los Angeles!  It's pretty close to where I live. It only takes me approximately ten minutes or less to get there from my apartment via bus so I consider it as part of my neighborhood.  When I want to go out with a friend and we don't have a lot of money to spend, we just go here and just have a picnic (usually with the food and drinks we bought from the 99 cents only store).  This is a nice place for city people to connect with nature.
    You will see various types of plants and trees here like California oak trees, wild sage, manzanita, Nevin's barberry and many others. When talking about fauna, you will find squirrels, opossums, mule deer, skunks, coyotes, foxes, bob cats, and many others.  The park is located at the Eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains.  It stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean.  The mountains also separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley. The Santa Monica Mountains belong to a group of mountain ranges here in the southern part of California along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Most of California is filled with the Pacific Mountains and Valleys.  California's physical environment is very diverse.  The Los Angeles area is both flat and as well as hilly.  California as a whole contains many faults which is why we often get earthquakes here in the state.

 Here is the topography of Los Angeles. (The image is not mine, it is from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=3067 )

                            This is an amateur video showing interesting places around Griffith Park.