Escape from LA in under 10 Minutes

What I love about L.A. is that you can drive under 10 minutes from home and feel like you are in a different world.  On Saturday afternoon, after a late night on Friday, we decided to get some fresh air with the dogs and drove 10 minutes up through Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood to hike Sullivan Canyon with the dogs.  It's pretty amazing, after only about 5 minutes of hiking, you are completely surrounded by nature: no houses, only hills and streams and greenery.  It is a very nice hike with the dogs; a good trail with lots of shade most of the time.  It is a moderate uphill one way and downhill on the way back; about 8 miles roundtrip (we didn't do the full roundtrip).  It was pretty quiet, we passed a couple of mountain bikers (including one on a unicycle, which was quite impressive) and a few hikers with their dogs, but otherwise it was just us most of the time.  I definitely want to make hiking a regular weekend activity; there are several trails in the area that I would like to explore.