Sunday, 7/17, La Brea Tar Pits, Venice Beach, Hollywood Blvd.

The boys and men went out to the 9:00AM services at Beth Jacob synagogue.  When
we got home, Chavee made us fresh pancakes.  I don't think it would be wise for
me to choose which was better - Debbie's Belgian waffles or Chavee's pancakes.

We first went to the La Brea Tar Pits (which cousin Michelle enlightened us that
the name is redundant since La Brea means tar pits).  We checked out samples of
complete animals that they have extracted from the tar pits.  They are currently
working on Pit 91, but it is currently suspended from excavation to allow time
for cleaning and cataloging the finds.  It's a pretty slow, labor intensive
process to do it all.

Sabre-Tooth attacking a Sloth

Pit 91 excavation

Then we went to Pizza World for lunch.  Decent pizza, but I think Nagila is
better.

From there we went back home for a bit and to pick up Michelle who would be
joining us on our outing to Venice Beach and the surrounding canals.  They tried
making the area look like the real Venice and built these canals with some
pretty nice houses lining the canals.  Lots of neat trees, plants, and shrubs
around the houses.

 

"World's Smallest Front Yard"

Guard Dog

We then moved onto the boardwalk area, walking down for quite some distance,
seeing all the interesting and quirky shops and personalities lining the
boardwalk.  Several "medicinal" marijuana shops as well.  We didn't make it onto
the beach itself, just to some of the sand to check out the skateboarders at the
skating park.  Then we had to walk ALL the way back to the parking lot to get
the car.

Two-headed turtle

Two-headed Mellon

Skate Park

Just in case it wasn't obvious

On our way back, we called in an order for chinese for dinner.  Karen tried
paying for it - we were fighting with Michelle to treat, but Michelle would have
none of it.  Then Karen wanted to at least split it, and gave the guy the credit
card, but I think Michelle might have motioned to the guy (who she knew) to not
use it and she wound up treating us all.  Sneaky!  We thank Michelle for the
delicious dinner.  But it's on us tomorrow night!

Chinese dinner

After dinner we went out to Hollywood Blvd to check out the Walk of Fame and the
Chinese Theater (where they do those celebrity hand/foot prints in the cement). 
They also have a lot of "performers" on the sidewalks in superhero costumes.  So
we walked around there for a while.

"And the winner is..."

As we walked back to the car, a load of police cars with their sirens blaring
came zooming right to the Kodak Theater (home of the Oscars).  A police
helicopter also came with its spotlight shining down.  We weren't sure what was
going on.  Must have been at least ten cars.  Then we saw they had some guy in
cuffs.  Still don't know what happened.  Then we left.

Tomorrow we plan on going to Universal Studios.