We had made reservations for the East Shore RV Resort in San Dimas, a suburb of Los Angeles. It was somewhat expensive--$51 a night for a site with a view, but the view was spectacular.
We spent the first afternoon relaxing and watching the Super Bowl “with a view”.
We spent part of Monday at the Lazy Daze factory getting an awning replaced that was damaged by wind just 2 days after we picked it up in July. Then we would spend a couple days sightseeing in the area.
Since I had never been to Disneyland in California and Sandy was there when she was a teenager, we decided to go because we may not have this much time in LA again. The weather was threatening rain, but we decided to go anyway hoping there wouldn’t be too many people. It only sprinkled a little bit and very few people were there. After having been to Disney World in Florida several times, the California Disneyland seems to be a miniature version of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Of course, when Walt Disney began planning Disney World in Florida, he bought up mass tracts of land and greatly expanded the original Disney concept.
We have always enjoyed “It’s Tough To Be A Bug” in Orlando, so we took this one in even though the entrance was not as interesting as winding your way through the gigantic “Tree Of Life”.
Upon seeing the roller coaster in the background I said we should go for a ride. Sandy said “absolutely not”.
After seeing the roller coaster do the upside down loop in the circle, I fully agreed.
If you read the writing in the circle, you’ll know why we took the picture below.
Cinderella’s Castle in Disneyland must be half the size of the one in Disney World.
Tomorrow Land’s Innovations has a robot demonstration that is quite impressive. The robot can talk, walk, dance and climb stairs. It’s hard to believe there really isn’t a human inside.
We started the next day by going to the La Brea Tar Pits which are located in downtown LA. We finished the day by going back to Disneyland. The weather was sunny and warm and the crowds were much larger.
The tar pits are constantly bubbling from the surfacing of methane gas.
It’s amazing all the bones that have been removed from the pits. A couple of examples of discoveries would be over 1,600 Dire Wolves and 159 Antique Bison. Also, all of the skeletons on display came from the pits. It is well worth allotting 3 plus hours to tour the area. The skeletal remains removed from these tar pits are characterized by their darkly stained color. Chances are if you have seen bones with this coloration in other museums, they may have been dug up from tar pits.
There are several dioramas in the museum plus skeletons of mammals and birds of prey.
Here is animated diorama of a Saber-Tooth Tiger attacking a Giant Sloth.
This is a Columbian Mammoth skeleton.
A Wooly Mammoth re-creation.
An Extinct Camel.
An Antique Bison.
Harlan’s Giant Sloth.
The following 2 pictures are of the Dire Wolf skull display. This wall of 400 skulls is only a portion of the over 1,600 found so far.
Archeological digging in the pits can only be done in the summer because the tar is more liquid and easier to dip out with the buckets. The work is very tedious to climb down into this gooey and smelly hot hole in the summer when temperatures can exceed 100 degrees.
Now we are off to the Joshua Tree National Park just east of Palm Springs, CA.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
No comments:
Post a Comment