LA 2013 Santa Monica

Ok this is the last in the series.  This is also the one in which my daughter liked the most.  The Santa Monica pier at low tide.  She had so much fun running around under the pier finding tide pool life, it was hard for one of the other parents to keep up.

I guess the stars of the show, pun intended, where the star fish.  They where everywhere and this was also the problem.  I saw too many starfish being carried away as trophies.  This first guy was fun to watch and after about 20 minutes and the number of people increasing, I had my daughter moving him closer to the tide line to give him a fighting chance to escape from being a trophy.



Here are a couple of macro shots.  (Having to try my macro lens.)



And the sunset.



And finally the pier.  I really need a light tripod to travel with.

LA 2013 La Brea

Ok this next one was a bit of a shocker.  We where driving back from a restaurant and we needed to turn on La Brea.  That sparked a memory and I knew of the La Brea Tar Pits but I was not sure where they where.  Thus when I got back to the place we where staying I had to look them up.  Lo and behold the tar pits ended up being about 5 miles from our current location.  Thus it became the next place where we had to go.  (Not everyone was excited and I think my daughter was mildly enthusiastic.)

First off, the Page Museum is a small one but a working one.  They actually had a couple of people cleaning fossils in the work area the day we went.  But what I found really fascinating was the fact that grad students roamed the floor talking about different things on display.  Also the items that where displayed where all from the pits and most where the actual fossils.

Here are some of the items being worked on.


I like how this is just propped in the corner.

Some of the displays.



This is a shot of the tar lake.  They have it fenced off but the park surrounding the museum has several areas where tar can be seen.  They place little square fences around new tar wellings.  I would just have to wonder about the surrounding buildings and their foundations.  Oh and one other thing.  As I was leaving, I was talking along the sidewalk outside of the park and noticed and area of the sidewalk that was covered in what looked like was tar.  Sure enough, a little spring was seeping up between the two sidewalk slabs.

This last one was from the museum next to the park.  It is me trying to be artsy.

LA 2013 Endeavor

We finished up the year by staying in LA for a few days.  Many things to see but we just did a couple of them.  Actually tried to do some other places that we normally do not get to.  (Well it mostly worked.)  Also I think I will break this into three different posts to try and keep the number of pictures in each down.

First off we, mostly I, had to go see the Endeavor at the California Science Center.  We saw the Enterprise when it was at the Air and Space Museum in DC.  The Enterprise was nice but this one was actually used.  Anyway, the setup is very nice and they have it in a separate building which they limit the number of visitors to.  They do this via free tickets and a time schedule.  This makes the viewing and access a lot nicer.  (You just have to remember to either stop in at the ticket counter to get IMAX and Shuttle tickets or get them online before you go.)

To start, they have a static display for the shuttle or space living.  Here is a quick photo of a set of tire.  I would guess they are a one time use item.

Now for the shuttle.  Here is what you see when you first walk into the building.

Here are a lot of general pictures of different aspects of the shuttle.



This picture make no sense, well it does in a very limited sense.  (There is probably a very small window of time in which this option could be used.)

Also here was some damage, not sure if this would have been from the move or from the last use.

Also at the Center is several other space and science related stuff.  Here was Felix Buamgartner capsule, I think this was only a replica.

Lastly a shot of the Endeavor as it flew over the San Francisco area.