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The night before, after we'd finished our laundry, I was invited down to the bar to watch bad karaoke. This sounded amiable to me, so I headed to The Lounge which had saloon style doors and was filled with men in cowboy hats, jeans and boots, and bikers and their women (since our hotel was full of them). Being from New Jersey, this was my first time in such a... country bar, and I just gawked in a corner at this strange culture. I hear some people think that this sort of thing is America, but it was certainly the first time I'd even encountered it. My friend who I was drinking with (we'd met doing laundry earlier) said the bars back in Arkansas looked like that all the time, but you'd have to drive for miles and miles to find one in the northeast. Anyway, I got to see a bunch of bikers sing YMCA, and then their women got up and sang Redneck Woman (and everyone knew the lyrics except for me...). It was an interesting cultural experience. If I were an anthropologist, I'd have been taking notes.
In the morning, we had a surprisingly short drive to Los Angeles. We allowed the GPS to lead us to La Brea Tarpits which took us right across several famous roads. We were lucky to find parking a few blocks away and walked to the park. The tar pits aren't as full of asphalt as I thought they'd be (though note the baby mammoth crying tears of tar for his dying mummy), but it can get pretty thick where it unauthorizedly bubbles from the ground, and the smaller pits are full of tar. We went inside the museum, watched their very old film, and did a quick round of the museum. The skeletons there are very nice, but their old animatrons are kinda dull and broken. The fossil lab there is the most interesting bit, but I just felt sympathy for them spending hours cleaning bones (been there, done that). I had a lot of fun in the gift shop at least. They had lots of anachronistic stuff in there so even though there were no dinosaurs at La Brea, they still sell dinosaur memorabilia *rolls eyes*. They also sold Indiana Jones stuff, which is, well, just plain wrong (archaeologists deal with human remains, paleontologists deal with ancient animal remains, capiche?) but I couldn't resist buying an Indiana Jones hat, which I am modelling in this picture *grin* There was a pet adoption fair going on in the park outside the museum which we had to wander through to see the other pits. This turned out to be a great idea since it took us by their main stage where the mayor of Los Angeles, and Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy on House, etc.) were there. Considering we'd been watching House the day before, it was a treat to see one of the stars in person.
From there, we headed back to Hollywood Blvd and turned so we could drive past the Chinese theatre. I got a picture on it's own and one with Sauron-chan, so we didn't bother stopping (parking would have been a bitch). Instead we headed further down Hollywood which is very pretty once you get past the downtown and turned to go back past La Brea and further to visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology. That is one weird place. It's a labyrinth inside and the exhibits range from the excruciatingly boring to the fascinating to the incomprehensible. You can see Napoleon, carved in miniature and placed in the eye of a needle, displays of decaying dice, magnetic spheres used for divination, boring displays of mobile homes, obsolete forms of 3-D imagery, a room devoted for folk cures etc. I can't say it's a museum for everyone, but if you want to go weird and bemused, it's the museum for you. They did have free tea and cookies upstairs which was a nice break from the bafflement of the displays. (I kinda wish I had charge of running this museum. I could make it twice as weird, and also twice as entertaining.)
Dad wished to find his grandmother's old home in LA so we plugged it into the GPS and braved the evening traffic to find a very pretty house, then discovered our hotel was an hour's drive out of LA, which was a bit annoying. I don't really want to go into it at this point, but we stopped at Walmart, my bank card didn't work, and to make a long story short, something bad happened with my bank (and not because of all the banks failing atm). I was very upset, and it didn't help that when we tried to go eat, our waitress ignored us for a good 15 minutes. We walked out, and ended up at Outback where the good food and service brought back some cheer at least. Then the evening was spent sorting out all the crap and trying to plan our day. So, in conclusion, it was a pretty good day until the evening.
We're off to San Diego now. We'd thought to hit a studio tour before we went, but for some reason, all the studios are closed for Columbus day. Go figure.
In the morning, we had a surprisingly short drive to Los Angeles. We allowed the GPS to lead us to La Brea Tarpits which took us right across several famous roads. We were lucky to find parking a few blocks away and walked to the park. The tar pits aren't as full of asphalt as I thought they'd be (though note the baby mammoth crying tears of tar for his dying mummy), but it can get pretty thick where it unauthorizedly bubbles from the ground, and the smaller pits are full of tar. We went inside the museum, watched their very old film, and did a quick round of the museum. The skeletons there are very nice, but their old animatrons are kinda dull and broken. The fossil lab there is the most interesting bit, but I just felt sympathy for them spending hours cleaning bones (been there, done that). I had a lot of fun in the gift shop at least. They had lots of anachronistic stuff in there so even though there were no dinosaurs at La Brea, they still sell dinosaur memorabilia *rolls eyes*. They also sold Indiana Jones stuff, which is, well, just plain wrong (archaeologists deal with human remains, paleontologists deal with ancient animal remains, capiche?) but I couldn't resist buying an Indiana Jones hat, which I am modelling in this picture *grin* There was a pet adoption fair going on in the park outside the museum which we had to wander through to see the other pits. This turned out to be a great idea since it took us by their main stage where the mayor of Los Angeles, and Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy on House, etc.) were there. Considering we'd been watching House the day before, it was a treat to see one of the stars in person.
From there, we headed back to Hollywood Blvd and turned so we could drive past the Chinese theatre. I got a picture on it's own and one with Sauron-chan, so we didn't bother stopping (parking would have been a bitch). Instead we headed further down Hollywood which is very pretty once you get past the downtown and turned to go back past La Brea and further to visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology. That is one weird place. It's a labyrinth inside and the exhibits range from the excruciatingly boring to the fascinating to the incomprehensible. You can see Napoleon, carved in miniature and placed in the eye of a needle, displays of decaying dice, magnetic spheres used for divination, boring displays of mobile homes, obsolete forms of 3-D imagery, a room devoted for folk cures etc. I can't say it's a museum for everyone, but if you want to go weird and bemused, it's the museum for you. They did have free tea and cookies upstairs which was a nice break from the bafflement of the displays. (I kinda wish I had charge of running this museum. I could make it twice as weird, and also twice as entertaining.)
Dad wished to find his grandmother's old home in LA so we plugged it into the GPS and braved the evening traffic to find a very pretty house, then discovered our hotel was an hour's drive out of LA, which was a bit annoying. I don't really want to go into it at this point, but we stopped at Walmart, my bank card didn't work, and to make a long story short, something bad happened with my bank (and not because of all the banks failing atm). I was very upset, and it didn't help that when we tried to go eat, our waitress ignored us for a good 15 minutes. We walked out, and ended up at Outback where the good food and service brought back some cheer at least. Then the evening was spent sorting out all the crap and trying to plan our day. So, in conclusion, it was a pretty good day until the evening.
We're off to San Diego now. We'd thought to hit a studio tour before we went, but for some reason, all the studios are closed for Columbus day. Go figure.
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