Was feeling nostalgic for the Hollywood Bowl experience. Built in a natural ampitheatre in the hills, when Cow lived in LA she had season tickets to their concerts, which offer an eclectic roster of jazz, classical, or rock.

When the Bowl was built in 1922, it was in the middle of nowhere, but now, surrounded by houses and steep hills, the hardy ones who try to drive and park there with the other 17,000 people attending the concerts must have nerves of steel.

For the others, the Bowl began offering buses from the Veteran's building in Westwood directly to the Bowl, an hour before showtime. So you'd park somewhere in the 80 acres of Veteran's parking, catch one of the special Bowl buses, filled with other concert-goers, and be delivered safely and quickly to the Bowl.

Once there, you'd hike up the steep hills and once inside, find a place to picnic. The breeze always comes up in the evening from Santa Monica; no matter how hot it is during the day it quickly drops 20 degrees at sunset. The stillness of the hills would be broken by the playing of the national anthem, then the concert would begin. Sitting in the moonlight, in the hills, with live music wafting over you, full from a nice picnic...what a joy for the senses.

Then, as soon as the concert was over, you'd run downhill to get back to your bus. They always threatened that they'd leave without anybody who was late, but I had a suspicion there was always one 'late' bus for people who stopped to listen to the buskers in the tunnel (great acoustics) or maybe got lost.

Photo courtesy of Grace.