Fun with fossils

I recently made a brief trip to California to celebrate my grandma's 85th birthday. After flying into LA, my sister and I took her kids on a field trip to the world famous La Brea Tar Pits. "Brea" means tar in Spanish, so, as my 13-year old niece astutely pointed out, The La Brea Tar Pits translates to "The the tar tar pits." (I love that my niece is getting old enough to appreciate the humor in things like this.) I believe the last time I visited La Brea was on a fourth-grade field trip. And I vividly remember being scarred by this horrific scene in the Lake Pit:

That's right, it's a mammoth stuck in the tar while its family helplessly looks on.

Still a little disturbing.

Because so many animals became stuck in the death trap that is the tar pits, we now have a treasure trove of fossils and artifacts from the Ice Age. The museum is small, but it's jam-packed with cool skeletons.

Mammoths.

Saber-toothed cats (apparently they're not called tigers).

These are all wolf skulls.

There are also some sweet animatronics illustrating what life was like during the Ice Age.

These both moved around and made sounds. Pretty life-like.

Here, paleontologists are cleaning fossils, including a newly discovered mammoth skull.

This is a viewing platform of a current excavation at one of the tar pits (they must've been on lunch break).

On the way back, we drove through Hollywood and saw the famous Hollywood sign (if you can see it through the smog).

We also passed by the future home of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. That will be fun to visit once it's opened.

Later in the trip, my parents and I swung by Manhattan Beach. I grew up just a few miles from here and spent a lot of time at this beach as a kid.

It was rather overcast, but Dad (a former surfer) says that this type of weather usually yields the best waves for surfing.

Hi, Dad!