Day 8 - LA

Since it's Friday, Kaitlyn couldn't meet us until after classes. So, we walked from our hotel to Century City Mall. We had a nice breakfast of espressos and french pastries.

After breakfast, we drove only about 6 miles to the La Brae Tar Pits, in the middle of LA!! It looked like a park - nicely landscaped - and had a big museum of bones of ancient animals recovered from the pits. We didn't have the time to tour the museum, but were fascinated by the tar pits. There are over 10 of them, I think. The largest one was about the size of a pond - others about the size of a swimming pool. They smelled and looked like tar. The were constantly bubbling as gases rose up from the bottom. Sometimes the gases actually burst up from below bellowing green gases.

We met Kaitlyn after lunch and went down to Santa Monica beach. We walked down the fishing pier where there were lots of shops and an amusement park. Afterwards, we walked around the Santa Monica Promenade - several blocks of pedestrian streets with lots of shopping, restaurants and music. Jon met us after his classes at Cal Tech and we ate crepes followed by gelato. It was especially pretty after dark and the streets were lit up.

People seem very nice here - friendly and very hard working. I haven't seen very many unusual people - and I haven't even seen one person with a tatoo or body piercing.