No Shopping but Paleontology

Travel

Dec 5

After the shock of the $10 coffee, we decided to revisit the original plan which had us spending an hour and half on Rodeo Drive shopping up a storm. Many of my friends (looking at you Katie Glennon) will be very proud that I decided NOT TO SHOP!!! And instead we went for a coffee, a little tiki tour around Santa Monica and a bike ride along the waterfront.

From there we then braved the horrors of a left hand drive combined with crazy drivers and risked life and limb to get into the middle of LA to visit the La Brea tarpits. Amazing. A live palaeontology site in the middle of what passes for civilisation. There is literally tar and fossils oozing out of the front lawn of the museum. there was a slightly disturbing but wholly fascinating exhibit: actual palaeontologists sitting being a glass window doing their thing with bones, brushes and solvents. Was slightly like seeing a human in a zoo so slightly disturbing.

From there we had a totally stress-free (ha!) drive to the Griffith Observatory which is an incredible Art Deco building that just happens to have a great view of the city. And a Foucault Pendulum. Which has been gently swaying since 1935 and swings whilst the Earth rotates beneath it so you can literally see the Earth rotating. For those interested, there is a much better description than I can write here. And to cap an absolutely fabulous afternoon, we saw a real live coyote on our walk down the hill!!!!

Finally to cap the night, we headed out for Mexican in Santa Monica which was amazing. Two highlights: the guacamole was to die for and then Ant nearly did die when he ate what he now refers to as Death or what the menu had as Chilles Toreados or blistered chillis. He swears that he was sweating from his eyeballs. Katie and I were literally falling apart with highly unsympathetic laughter. I’ve never seen a man someone literally bury their face in a cocktail to get to the ice…..

So a fiery end to our stay in LA with 12,887 steps for the day: tomorrow we start the road trip part of the holiday!!