Los Angeles' famous Griffith Park Observatory has been closed for renovations for a few years. However, it's re-opening tonight... but only for "special people". This dispatch filed by our Roving Bike News Team:

I drove up Hillhurst behind a very, very slow older tour bus with Wyoming plates. It was apparently too wide for the road, and had to even drive partway on the center median, destroying a large portion of the grass surface. I assumed it was for a band or something, and, after I finally got around it I thought nothing of it.

The RBNT biked up the road and soon saw signs saying "O.C.D.", then began seeing television trucks and the like. TV fans probably know what's coming next! Yes, indeed, it was an outside shoot for the television program "Monk". It would have been possible to perhaps see some shooting or something, but our team deciding to keep peddling since we've never seen the show and didn't really care.

Then, after almost completing our loop and stopping outside the locked gate for the Observatory, who should show up but the tour bus we saw earlier. From the conversation he had with the guard, combined with various messages over the guard's walktie-talkie as well as personal reportage by speaking to the mostly non-English-speaking guard we gleaned that the Observatory is opening tonight. But, he said we couldn't go in, since it was just for "councilmembers", people who've "donated millions of dollars", and in general, just for "special people". The buses were going to be ferrying said "special people" from the parking lot below up to the landmark, and they were making a dry run to familiarize themselves with the route. Of course, there's only one route so we suspected they were just going to do some sightseeing.

Our team also gleaned that the VIPs and other "special people" wouldn't start arriving for 45 minutes. Rather than waiting so long for a possible glimpse of Leonard Nimoy or "Mayor Reconquista" (former MEChA member Antonio Villaraigosa), we decided to peddle down the hill for an enjoyable downhill. I hope that TLB HQ is not upset with this decision.

No, not at all. In fact, we would have done the same thing.

The Observatory re-opens for we the hoi polloi on November 3. Let's hope Mayor Reconquista and the other "special people" get their fill tonight and decide to take a pass on that day's festivities.