Daily Art - A birthday visit to the Observatory

Yesterday was my birthday and what a beautiful day it was - nothing wrong with clear blue skies and warmth to celebrate!  I hadn't taken my camera out for a ride recently, and decided that I wanted to take a trip up to the Griffith Observatory.  The Observatory is one of those treasures, overlooking the city and free for visitors to explore.  I'm determined to make it up there during the evening sometime when I can check out the telescope and the Los Angeles lit up at night.

One of the first things that you see when hiking up toward the building is the obelisk, an homage to the greatest astronomers of all time - Hipparchus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Herschel.

From there, it's fun to take a walk around the rooftop, and outside of the building.

It's got a pretty sweet view of the Hollywood sign....

....and, in the other direction, Downtown L.A.

The pendulum swinging inside the lobby of the Observatory, demonstrating the Earth's rotation.

Such a nice relaxing way to spend my birthday!  I hope you all had a chance to enjoy the weekend too.  :)