The La Brea Tar Pits and Griffith Park

A few weeks ago, some foreign friends from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) were visiting LA. Another GDC friend, Jeff, acted as tour guide and showed us around. We visited many places, including Venice Beach and Mann's Chinese Theater. However, I took pictures of only the La Brea Tar Pits and Griffith Park.

From left to right, here are Robert (from Sweden), Irene (from Norway), and Jeff. I had always wanted to visit the La Brea Tar Pits, so I'm glad Jeff took us. There are two main parts: the museum and the tar pits. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit the latter.

Another view of the elephant/mammoth skeleton. I had always thought that the tar pits were full of dinosaur bones, but actually the tar pits are too recent for that. (The tar pits date back maybe 100,000 years, but the dinosaurs date back millions of years?)

The La Brea Tar Pits also has a volunteer program in which you can learn to dig out and clean up the fossils. It's a tempting opportunity!

In the evening, we headed up to Griffith Park. The park is up in the hills around LA, so there's a spectacular view of the city. There is also an observatory, but it was closed that evening.

From LA w/Jeff, Irene & Robert

Grad school took me six years, but I never went to Griffith Park in all that time. I'm glad I got to see it.

Perhaps someday I'll do some other LA things: the Getty museum and Mount Wilson.