Day 2 - Wednesday 19 March

We all slept pretty well last night, give or take.  We'd all gone to bed about 8pm, then Eric and I were both awake at 10pm, thinking we'd had really good long sleeps!! Eric & I got up about 7.30am, and the boys were still sound asleep, finally rousing and making their way to breakfast.  Juices, tea/coffee, sachet of hot chocolate, toast, an assortment of donuts (either sugar-coated or iced), sachets of porridge to make up, very sweet Frosted Flakes and Raisin Bran.   As you can imagine, the boys went for the donuts!!

We finally left the hotel about 10.30am and made our way to the La Brea Tar pits and the Page Museum.  Brea is Spanish for tar, and we actually got to see tar on the grass around the place, as well as some of the tar pits where they have excavated millions of fossils from the pleistocene era.   There is a lake outside it which still bubbles with methane gases and asphalt (or tar).  Did you know that there used to be camels in America?!  And some species of sloth were at least 4 or 5 ft tall.  The original horses in America (whose skeletons and re-constructions look remarkably similar to what we recognise as horses) died out and were replaced by those we know today.  You could smael the tar when you walked round outside.  It was quite cool.  Outside the museum was also where Karl & Robin saw their first squirrel!

After a slight geographical mishap, which allowed us time to see different areas of LA, we found our way to Exposition Park, the site of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Stadium, and also the home to a number of (free) museums.  The main one we wanted to see was the California Science Centre, home of the space shuttle Endeavour, which flew 25 missions.  It was impressive to see it for real, having watched a number of live launches on TV in the early hours of the mornings in NZ back in the 1990s.  The black tiles on the bottom of the shuttle (each one about $2,000 to make, and very light and brittle to hold, apparently) were all individually shaped to fit exactly into position on the shuttle.  There was a display of the toilet off the shuttles, and a video of a couple of guys talking through the mechanics of actually going to the toilet in space.  There were 3 sizes of cups for women to choose and it had to create a good seal about the .. um .. you know,... the parts.  The cup for the men didn't create a seal, it was simply a case of peeing into the tube.  And the other business was even more complicated!

There were so many more exhibits at the Science Centre, different themed areas with lots of hands-on activities.  There was even a question in one area about the Stephens Island wrens from New Zealand, which had never been seen to fly as there were no predators so it had no need to fly!  NZ is famous.

Outside, in Exposition Park, there were a couple of aircraft, the A-12 (Blackbird) being the key one of interest for the boys (both big and small ones!).

Meandered our way reasonably directly to the LA Farmers Market, where we all had a real American Hotdog for dinner!

Then, a drive along Hollywood Blvd, past the Chinese Theatre, up some extremely narrow and windy roads to a lookout just below the Hollywood sign to see the lights of LA (it was about 8pm or so at this stage) then back down and a quick stop on Hollywood Blvd this time to see some stars (unfortunately none that the boys recognised, but Eric & I saw ones for The Pointer Sisters, Edward Asner, Walther Mathau, Jack Lemmon and John Belushi).

Back to the motel, with the boys falling asleep en route.  Unfortunately, when they got here and hopped into bed, they giggled and carried on and on, and have only just gone quiet (it's now coming up for 11pm).

It's been a long day - but we'll get used to that - but we've seen a few cool things, and hopefully learnt some things along the way.

Off to Disney California Park tomorrow (9am - 9pm) then Disneyland on Friday (9am - midnight!), so may or may not blog.