The morning was again nice and cool. We picked up a rental car but the first one they gave us rattled so much that we brought it back and switched us out. Within no time, we were headed toward Hollywood in a silver Jetta.

Passing Los Angeles

If "objects in mirror are closer than they appear," then this guy is in the backseat!

Known as "L.A. Freeway Kids" (by Glenna Boltuch Avila during the 1984 Olympics), the kids range from 6 - 18 feet tall. Over the years they had gotten so obscured by graffiti that they had to be redone a couple years ago.

We arrived in Hollywood did a short driving tour of the area, enjoying a few of the more famous sights.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! museum is easily recognized by a giant T-rex on the roof.

Scientology is a religion created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard (1911 - 1986) in 1952. It teaches that people are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame has more than 2,500 stars embedded in 1.3 miles of sidewalks, honoring those in the entertainment industry... actors, musicians, directors, fictional characters, etc. Construction began in 1958 but was delayed for 2 years by lawsuits.

The Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak Theatre) is a live-performance auditorium opened in 2001. It is now home to the Academy Awards ceremonies (the Oscars).

The ego of ownership... this movie theater was originally named Grauman's Chinese Theatre, after the man who built it in 1927. It was then renamed as Mann's Chinese Theatre in 1973, this time after the man who bought it. It is now called TCL Chinese Theater... after a Chinese electronics company.

A barrage of of advertisements...

... some as tall as an entire building!

Whisky a Go Go is a famous nightclub founded in1964.

The Beverly Hills City Hall was built in 1932.

Rodeo Drive is known for its luxury-goods stores.

Founded in 1818, Brooks Brothers is the oldest men's clothing chain in the US.

Eek! Almost $5 per gallon!

LA Country Museum of Art

We found a place to park then visited the tar pits.

Our rental car

Modern parking meters

Rancho La Brea is often called the La Brea Tar Pits (but since 'la' means 'the' and 'brea' means 'tar' in Spanish... we are literally saying "the the tar tar pits").

Natural asphalt (pitch or tar) has seeped to the surface from an underlying oil field in this area for tens of thousands of years. The thick deposits would be hidden with layers of water, dust or leaves. Unsuspecting Ice Age animals would wander in, become trapped and eventually die. Predators trying to eat these trapped animals would in turn also become stuck.

This area contains one of the richest deposits of fossils from the last part of the Ice Age, approximately 40,000 - 10,000 years ago. Over 100 tons of fossils have been recovered. In 2006, the adjacent LA Country Museum of Art began constructing an underground parking structure... revealing 16 new areas of fossil deposits. These were dug up, placed into crates and saved to be excavated later.

The Pleistocene ground sloth in North America was the size of a bear!

The area smelled just like when the roads are being paved... tar! We walked around the several small pools.

At this site, known as Pit 9, a deep fissure filled with asphalt was excavated to a depth of 35 feet. Over 10,000 fossils were excavated from 1913- 1914 and included short faced bears, American lions, mastodons, sabertoothed cats, dire wolves, camels, horses and ground sloths.

About 30 Columbian Mammoths, ranging from newborns to elderly, were uncovered.

The fossils from Pit 13 date back 15,000 years.

Many of the fossils show damage caused by the bones rubbing against each other, either as the result of passing animal herds or earthquakes.

All the pits were safely fenced off...

... because you REALLY would not want to get stuck in this stuff!

We then wandered over to the Lake Pit.

Passing the LA Country Museum of Art

The Goodyear blimp floats high overhead. Since 1925, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company has used blimps for advertising and for aerial views of sporting events. They currently have three of them... one in Florida, one in Ohio and one here (named the Spirit of America).