Michelle Espinoza and her friend Drake Caudillo of Whittier had to park their motorcycle on Los Feliz Boulevard and hike 45 minutes up to the observatory because of the crowded parking.
“It was totally worth it,” Caudillo said. “For me, this is like a bucket-list thing.”
At first they thought they weren't going to see the fly-by because of fog, but Espinoza got a shot of it in front of the Hollywood sign.
“I'm going to go home and print it,” Espinoza said.
For others who crowded into Griffith Park — at one point authorities closed some streets to traffic — the event was also about inspiration.
Sam Saldana let his three sons skip the first half of school to watch the Endeavour at Griffith Observatory to “open their eyes to possibility.”
“We're from a pretty rough part of town. I wanted to show them something different,” said Saldana, a machine operator from Pacoima.
Saldana, who works from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m, brought his sons over at 7 a.m. Friday.
“I feel like a zombie, but it's worth it,” he said.
Maybe after seeing the fly-by, his 5-, 7- and 9-year-old sons — who were all dressed in their blue polo school shirts and khakis — will want to become astronauts or engineers, Saldana said.
The plan was to take them to school for a half-day when the event ended, he added.
“They can see this and maybe want to do that one day,” Saldana said while looking out over the Hollywood Hills.
If the flyover on Friday was an exciting historical moment or potential inspiration to some, for others more intimately involved with the space shuttle program, it also triggered a bit of mourning.
