3.01.98

This weekend I was determined to do some touristy stuff. Although, it seems every time I step out of the apartment I'm a tourist. Almost every place you ever live has something that has to be seen - even if it's only the six-legged goat at the county fair. Every big city in America and every city, village and pothole in Europe has "attractions." Los Angeles has many attractions - probably too many, as evidenced by what T. and I spent our Saturday afternoon doing.

The thing is that you've got to do these tourist things right away or you'll never do them. Can you believe I spent close to three years in England and never traveled through Wales? I sometimes tell people I have: "Oh," I coo, "Wales is just sooo beautiful" because it is - who's going to dispute that? Just because I've never been there doesn't really matter. I guarantee that if you go to Wales you will agree that it is beautiful. Also, I never went to Stone henge. I really intended to but I kept putting it off because when you live there you can go anytime. Pretty soon you move away and then, "D'oh! I never went to Stonehenge." I almost let this happen to me in San Antonio when after four months there I still had not seen The Alamo.

My point is that T. and I decided to do a little sightseeing last Saturday.

Destination: La Brea Tarpits.

There's really not much to say about the tarpits (but, believe me, I'll stretch it out). The event of seeing these famous bogs was decidedly anti-climactic. First of all, we had to park in a garage which charges $1.34 per 20 minutes. I've seen this sort of scam around L.A. and I don't think it will ever stop enraging me - ever.

So, we limp (another story) on over to the tarpits or rather the "tar lake." We climbed the steps to an official viewing area and stared unamazed at a murky, brownish "lake" with glossy rainbows of oil reflecting on the surface. Dappled across the "lake" were spots bubbling with what we read were "natural gas leaks from deep in the earth." I thought they looked a little suspicious. At one end of the tar lake were two large concrete sculptures of Mastadons - one was supposed to be a baby, and was standing on the greasy shore, the other was the mother struggling to free herself from the sucking, mucking, unfeeling and unyielding pit of despair. Sadly, it didn't look that violent.

Around this "tar lake" are a number of smaller tarpits. There's a nice little winding path dotted with fluorescent-green, painted, cats paws which, on closer examination, I determined to be those of a Saber-toothed Tiger. The whole premise, I thought, of the Tarpits was that dinosaurs and other exotic animals had perished in these lusty pits and thus graced us curiosity-seekers with all sorts of neat-o fossils and big saber-toothed teeth. This, as we were to find out at Pit 91, was not true.

Pit 91 is along the walkway and you can go into another special viewing area to view progress on excavation of said pit. Stunning... truly. We picked up this little tidbit of information inside the viewing area: "No dinosaur fossils have been or will ever be found in Pit 91 as dinosaurs died out long before the Tarpits ever formed." So, I don't really know what that Mastadon was doing thrashing around in the tar lake unless, I suppose, the Giant Mammal Era of our globe's timeline coincided with the pit's evolution. Regardless, nowhere was it made clear the exact connection between fossils and the pits. Perhaps we had to take the $6 indoor tour for those answers.

T. and I, it turns out, were expecting something more... real life - like Disneyland®. I question the actuality of all those natural gas leaks - how easy would it be to put some little air bubblers down there? T. was disappointed that there were no animitronic reenactments. I suggested that the museum could have gone even a step further. The staff could hide in the bushes and reeds surrounding the tar lake and periodically launch a beaver or a duck into it. The tourists would gasp in horror. The truly sick would snap pictures. The compassionate would beg the staff to help the animal. The cynical would say, "Well, that's the way it is with the Tarpits." The classic struggle - nature against tar. Can Nature beat the odds? The answer, sadly, is no.

So, after this poor excuse for a city attraction we meandered around the area which is known either as The Miracle Mile or Museum Square (perhaps both). The Musuem Square consists of the La Brea Tarpits, the Museum of Minatures, the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art and the Automotive Museum, to name a few. T. and I headed over to the Automotive Museum and enjoyed ourselves immensely. It has a great collection of vintage cars. Our favorite wing of the museum held the Concept Cars that were collected over the years. One of them looked like the original Batmobile. Anyway, I highly recommend it if you're into that sort of thing.

Next weekend I'm determined to check out the Santa Monica Pier. I keep hearing the name so it must be popular, right? Remember I'm doing this all for you - yes, you, the fictional reader of these stories.