Day 5- La Brea Tar Pits

In LA, we visited the George C. Page Museum ( http://www.tarpits.org/ ) which is located at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits. This is a world famous fossil find in the middle of Los Angeles. It was weird to see this giant black stinky pond surrounded by tall skyscrapers. In the museum, we were able to try to lift the tar and see what it was like for animals that got stuck in it. The tar was very thick and gooey. (In the pits, tar seeps up out of the ground and sometimes is covered with water. Years ago, animals had come to get a drink of the water and fell in, sank in the tar, and were preserved as bones.) The museum had a small garden where we got to see cute turtles and koi fish. We also got to see an observation room where real paleontologists work and discover new fossils. After leaving the tar pits, we headed out of the city to find a place to camp. LA was a very busy place and the drivers were crazy. We saw lots of graffiti, Hollywood stars, and interesting people. On the coast, we landed at South Carlsbad State Park.