Well, today we drove into Los Angeles to the La Brea tar pits and Page Museum. Yes, the traffic out here is as bad as everyone talks about it being and we were not in the rush hour traffic. We did make it to the La Brea tar pits and even found a free parking place along a street. These tar pits contain skeletal remains of thousands prehistoric animals- mastodons, giant sloths, ancient camels, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves (to name a few). Animals would come to these areas looking for water and become trapped in the thick tar (asphalt, really) and then struggling to get free may have been attacked by other animals that also became trapped. A tar depth of only 2 inches could trap a mastodon. The asphalt was a perfect preserver of the bones. A parking garage was to be built in a nearby location and when excavating the area more pits were uncovered. To prevent the delaying of this construction 23 huge boxes or crates were filled of the excavated gooey earth and is now being combed through for bones by staff and volunteers (Project 23)- what a messy job. A pit #91 is in a 5 year archeological dig hiatus while project 23 is being done.
The Page Museum, a museum about the tar pits, is on the grounds of the tar pits. There are many displays of many of the bones that have been recovered. The number of bones recovered are in the millions. There has only been the remains of one human found, a female. There are 2 theaters that show films about the tar pits and about the digs taking place. The grounds around the tar pits and the museum are nicely landscaped with some pretty flowering plants. We spent a couple hours in this area.
Before returning to Anaheim we drove up Hollywood Boulevard to the corner of Vine Street- the famous Hollywood and Vine. The large Holly wood sign could be seen on the hillside but unfortunately we were not able to get a picture. We were looking for some place to get lunch but again the parking was a problem so returned back to Anaheim to eat at Mimi’s Café. Leaving the restaurant we drove a short distance to Disney Village which we walked about and purchasing a few things.
Disney had the fireworks tonight which we enjoyed from our motorhome. A nice ending to the day.
