14 November 2011 Le Brea and Santa Monica

We both had great memories of visiting La Brea so we were excited at the chance to return. It was a lot of fun walking through the museum a second time. I noticed a lot more on this visit than the last. After the museum visit, we spent more time on the grounds visiting the many remaining open tar pits. The methane gas bubbles and the tar bubbles are quite a sight.

Buffalo

Those are really strangely shaped teeth.

Too bad there was no work taking place in the lab today.

Mommy.....

Methane bubbles from the surface.

Unlike the vigorous gas bubbling from the methane, the tar bubbles are a much slower proces. They rise up like a viscous balloon, then plop and look like collapsed dough.

Neither of us seemed too worried about the short faced bear behind us.

We both spotted the food trucks across the street from the museum and park and wanted to try the fare. Food trucks may be the rage in many other places, but they have been rare creatures on the landscape of northeast Ohio. There is certainly nowhere else in our normal travels where this level of food variety was waiting. We saw lots of trucks setting up in Portland during the spring, but were too early for food. Today was just right.

Yum

A completely unexpected surprise was an art exhibit in display near where we ate. The piece was a ten-panel section of the Berlin Wall including four panels with the original cold-war graffiti from when the wall was torn down. It's a bit strange to think that soon the Berlin Wall will be a few paragraphs in history as those of us who remember depart. As a youth, I remember the evening news stories of some poor soul being shot to death as he tried to cross the wall and reach freedom. It was important for me to touch this symbol of people who cared so much they were willing to die.

Are they following me? I tried to talk Ali into stopping by the booth and getting interviewed for the archives. She said no. I'm not so sure I want to hear what she had to say. I know what I would say. I just have no idea how I would say it (or any idea of how to fix this html).

This is a nice piece of outdoor work at the museum. It has the twelve Chinese Zodial sculptures arranged in a circle. Ali is posing by the Rat which is the year for both of us. It's a bit interesting. Ali mirrors the positive traits of someone born in a rat year while I unfortunately am a near perfect match for the negatives. Hmmmm....

Our walk around Santa Monica was amazing. We were here soon enough to see the sunset and take a long walk before meeting Ali's aunt and cousin for dinner. It was great to see Ali's family again, and the dinner was super and probably the best of the trip.