Page Museum: La Brea Tar Pits

The Mister started a new job last Monday. The pay is awful, but it is a job! We are still unsure of the commission, which is funny to us that such an enormous detail remains unclear. But, that is the difference between working for the largest pharmaceutical company in the world versus a company with 7 employees. The Mister went from corporate giant to mom and pop start up. I am confident everything will work, so we are not terribly worried. We are lucky people, and the harder we work, the luckier we get.

We tried to take advantage of The Mister’s extended vacation, so one day last month we decided to visit the La Brea Tar Pits. At that point we were still unsure of The Mister’s chances at gainful employment, so we had the bright idea to visit on the first Tuesday of the month since admission is free. Unfortunately, L.A. Unified School District had the same idea.

When we saw a line of parked school buses three blocks long, we knew we were in trouble. Sure enough, entering the complex was like jumping into a swarm of locusts. You didn’t so much as walk as move with the crowd. I half expected the 78 year old docent to jump off the counter and crowd surf the children and parents.

Mikey, at first, was unimpressed. The Mister (never having been to this museum) promised him dinosaurs. So, when we arrived and he saw mammoths, he was beside himself with disappointment. In his words, “Oh, no! There aren’t going to be any dinosaurs here! Mammoths are from the Pleistocene Era and dinosaurs were extinct already.” He may have fooled Nicholas, but I wasn’t impressed. It’s the Cenozoic Era and the Pleistocene Epoch. Duh.

The one thing I wanted the boys to try was the faux tar pits. They are poles meant to mimic the feet of mammoths and other animals who would have found themselves stuck in tar filled water. I did this as a child a little older than Mikey, and I remember thinking it was almost impossible to lift. Of course, we had to wait for the contaminants to clear the area, which took a while since they were 4 deep. After the crowd cleared and the eight gallons of hand sanitizer I doused the equipment with dried, we were good to go. As expected, they loved it.

Mikey started to warm up to the study of the Pleistocene Epoch after experiencing the faux pits.

And when he rounded the corner and saw a diorama of Saber Tooth Tigers on attack he was sold. Nothing intrigues the mind of small boys like blood letting. Kind of creepy, but true.

They do have a Paleontology Laboratory on site, which I thought would interest Mikey since he claims, for the last year, that he will grow up to be a paleontologist. It did, but I think he would have preferred to see the lab somewhere in wilds of south America.

As big as I remember that museum as a child, there wasn’t much left to see after that. Of course we bought in souvenirs what we saved in admission tickets. I bought Mikey a few stones to add to his rock collection, and Nico got a Saber Tooth Tiger plastic something or another. Both boys got place mats which later completely scratched off the finish on our dining room table.

All in all, a great day, even for His Royal Highness, Mikey of Dinosaurlandia.