Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive is a road in Los Angeles, named after engineer William Mulholland.  The mostly two-lane, minor arterial road loosely follows the ridge line of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Hollywood Hills, It offers spectacular views of both the Los Angeles basin, Hollywood, the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood Sign, Griffith Park Observatory, and the San Fernando Valley.

We had a party to attend in the Beverly Park Neighborhood which is in the hills above LA.  We took Mulholland drive to get there.  I drove there and didn't get to enjoy much of the scenery as I was concentrating on driving.  The sun was setting and every once and awhile I would get an amazing view of the city or the basin.  If you're not use to driving this road, you definitely need to concentrate because you drive along the edge of the mountain and it can be nerve wracking. Grete drove home and I was able to see the city lit up.  It is worth the absolutely worth the trip up the mountain.

In pop culture Mulholland drive has quite a presence.  There is the infamous movie Mulholland Dr by David Lynch.  King of the Mountain was a movie loosely based on actual Mulholland Drive racers, racing to be king of the hill, it is a painting by David Hockney, A ride at Disneyland's California Adventure is called "Mulholland Madness," Mulholland Drive Dog is a kind of hot dog at Pink's Hot Dogs in Los Angeles, referencing Lynch's film Mulholland Drive. A scene in the movie took place at Pink's, and the dog's description on the menu is "a 10-inch STRETCH dog", with "stretch" capitalized, since a critical part of the film revolves around a stretch limousine driving up Mulholland Drive and American pop artist Ke$ha wrote a song about Mullholland Drive titled "Shots On the Hood of My Car." 

The easiest roads to access Mulholland Dr are:

• Highland Avenue to Cahuenga Blvd West - from Hollywood
• 101 Freeway to Barham to Cahuenga Blvd West - from Downtown LA and all points south and east
• Crescent Heights to Laurel Canyon - from Hollywood, The Grove & Farmers Market, Museum Square in Miracle Mile, Beverly Center
• Beverly Drive to Coldwater Canyon - from Beverly Hills, Hollywood, The Grove & Farmers Market, Miracle Mile,
• Beverly Glen - from Westwood, Century City or Beverly Hills
• The 405 freeway or Sepulveda Blvd - from West LA, including Westwood area, near the Getty, from LAX or Santa Monica