August 12, 2008: Los Angeles

The Ambrose hotel has really, really good croissants for breakfast. REALLY good. Just thought everyone should know that.

Then we headed off to check out Venice Beach. Depending on your perspective, it's either charmingly bohemian, or a total dump. I tend toward the latter. Lots of cheap T-shirts, knock-off sunglasses and rusted out, abandoned stalls.

Lots of people swimming and surfing, though. And the Venice "canals" were quite lovely. A few blocks away from the craziness of the boardwalk, these artificial waterways are fronted by million dollar homes with beautiful gardens. You can walk along the sides of the canals and cross over the water on a series of little bridges.

Thanks to Steve Karpik for his suggestion to visit the La Brea Tar Pits. Totally fascinating. Due to all the seismic activity in the Los Angeles area, deposits of oil deep underground have been bubbling to the surface and gelling into a thick, treacherous goo for over 42,000 years. Animals would enter the pits intending to drink the water on the surface, only to become trapped in the tar and die.

The first thing you see when you arrive at the museum is the charming tableau in the picture above. Near as Sarah and I could figure, "Daddy" mastodon has become ensnared while the "Mommy" and "Baby" mastodons (mastodii?) look on helplessly in sheer terror. Yikes. How many innocent school children have been traumatized by this little study in prehistoric mayhem? It was extremely disturbing. Or at least I thought so. Sarah was busy being fascinated by the way the Daddy Mastodon's motorized head was swiveling around.

The trauma continued in the Tar Pits welcome centre, where we were treated to an intro movie that featured an animated sequence in which a horse gets trapped in the tar, is set upon by a nasty sabre-tooth who also gets sucked in, at which point they're both attacked by a pack of snarling wolves who made the mistake of joining the party...well, before long the three-year-old sitting next to us started whimpering.

Awesome animatronic displays. Note the sabre-tooth taking on the ancient ground sloth in the pic at right. Lots of growly noises and head-swiveling. They also had a really fascinating viewing area where visitors can watch paleontologists working on "Pit 91", removing fossils from a still-active tar deposit. Plus they waived Sarah's entrance fee for being a teacher and I got in free for working for the Science Centre. This museum gets an A+ in my books. Fun all around :) Hate to say it, but the Los Angeles County Museum of Art right next door positively paled in comparison, despite the stunning collection of 17th century art glass.

Tomorrow we see the homes of the stars!