I love to explore Los Angeles. I've lived here for at least 50 years (not all of it contiguous). And, much of that time, has been spent driving throughout the metropolitan area for my work supporting IBM customers.  I'm sure I've driven more than 500.000 miles on its freeways and streets.  Peter, a life-long friend used to ask (when bored at work) to go on a "Mysto Trail" ride to explore some area. More recently someone called me a "Human GPS."  I do love to wander and explore!

After all that time and mileage, you would think I had explored all the interesting areas. It's NOT true! And, today's post is about finding something new. It is a very large cemetery called Rose Hills Memorial Park. It was founded in 1914 and is very large ... 1,400 acre's of land! Most of it lies on surrounding hills in the San Gabriel area of Greater Los Angeles. On a clear day there's a great view of the area!

At the top of the first major hill is this chapel:

I was surprised at the architecture inside:

A view of the ceiling rafters:

Conceptually, it reminded me of this view of a chapel in Arkansas that I photographed a couple of years ago!

At the very top of a different hill was large structure ... a Buddhist  temple. I was surprised, though I shouldn't have been, as this area is home for a large population of Asians living in Los Angeles. Inside the temple, are the remains of many. It is the tradition in Buddhism that remains are cremated rather than buried in the ground in a casket.  

There is a great view from the other side of this temple so I decided to walk around the round building. At various points there were insets of Buddha poses. And around the entire exterior were places for cremated remains. Essentially the building will become a big vault for a large number of remains!

One of the insets had a little doll of Homer Simpson "standing" upright. It was an incongruity that needed to be photographed! Since there were remains in-cased in the wall, I assume the doll was left as a remembrance by a loved one.

On my way out of the parking lot I spotted this item. A GTE Phone Booth!  But, GTE merged into Verizon in 2000 and Verizon sold its California business to Frontier two years ago. So this telephone booth is at least 17 years old. Given the revolution of smart phones, I suspect there may be a few viewers who might not know what this is.

And, as I thought, there's no phone in the booth!

I heard a lot of squawking overhead and looked up to see two crows yelling, screaming, and diving at a hawk! Part of the nature is everywhere program that Mr. Trump seems to be unaware of!

Sorry for the political comment ... couldn't help myself.

Bye for now,

Adam