The Adventures of Jeff and Jen: May 2013

Located in the Santa Monica Mountains is Franklin Canyon Park. Within this part are 2 lakes (I think technically they are reservoirs) and a small pond. We visited the upper reservoir called Franklin Canyon Lake and a small pond to the west of the lake, called Heavenly Pond.

I've known about Heavenly Pond for quite some time now. I knew that it is a small, quiet, turtle pond that would be a perfect backup plan for releasing our turtles if we did not find a good home for them (but we ended up surrendering them to CTCC). I've been wanting to visit here for weeks but with Caitlin's rigid nap schedule, this item was just never high enough on our list for us to get around to it. Finally, the opportunity arrived! On April 29th, my parents needed a ride from the airport and it was during the middle of the work day so Jeff took the day off to drive them home (why didn't I drive them home? Well, first, it was during Caitlin's nap time. Second, they asked Jeff to drive them, not me ~_~). With his day off, we were able to finally go! Caitlin and I love it when we get 3-day weekends with Jeff. =)

We took surface streets since there are no major freeways from us to mountains. The entrance to the park is located right off a small residential street in Beverly Hills. For a second, I thought that maybe we were going the wrong way. Must be nice to be one of those rich people to have a park literally right in your backyard.
We parked right in between the lake and pond, and walked the teeny tiny "trail" (so small, doesn't deserve the name "trail") around Heavenly Pond. I made sure to take plenty of pictures of the turtles there. I was a bit bummed that there were very few ducks there. Then I asked a kind stranger where to go to see the lake. She said right across the street to the right! We crossed the street, turned right, and found a flight of stairs that took us down to a hiking trail that goes around the perimeter of the lake. We walked around the entire lake then headed on home. It was such a small lake and short hiking trail, that I think we headed back home within an hour of arriving there. I know there are more hiking trails that goes into the mountains but we weren't into anything strenuous.
Overall, it was pretty to look at, but much smaller than I expected. There were very few people but that is probably because we came during a workday. I would imagine parking may be tough on a weekend. There were a few small picnic tables off the side of the road so this place could be a picnic+hiking type of place.

Us at Heavenly Pond. I LOVE C's new shoes