I Love L.A.
Mood:  happy
There are a lot of things I don't love about L.A. I'm an Orange County girl through and through, and if you broach the subject of our larger, smellier neighbor to the north, I'm inclined to sniff, "I don't do L.A. County." There are reasons I live in this Republican hotbed I call home. Better services, cleaner air, less traffic, and a distinct lack of slum housing being among them.

But on Saturday last, I spent the entire day in L.A. -- and liked it. Because we explored two, in my opinion, of the coolest things L.A. has to offer.

Our first stop was the La Brea Tar Pits. There's something mystical about the place that you just have to see. For one thing, it's embedded in a busy stretch of Wilshire Boulevard, and just the uncanny placement makes it cool by definition. If you're not familiar with the Tar Pits, a little background can be found here.

Anyway, I adore the Tar Pits. I like the little museum, but mostly I love Hancock Park, with the lake where you can see tar bubbling up from deep below, and the sculptures of mammoths and sabre-toothed cats. So cool. It's one of those places that just its very existence is like a valentine for the soul. And Sam was very pleased and impressed, and I enjoy pleasing and impressing him.

After that, we headed through L.A. and up to Hollywood. I have an unreasonably intense, touristy love of the Hollywood sign. However, since I don't do L.A. County, I seldom get to see it. My patient husband, who doesn't question my more insane tastes, drove around so I got to see the Hollywood sign at several choice angles, then he drove up through the hills to where I could look at it from directly underneath it. We looked like a pack of fool tourists for sure, parked in a cul-de-sac gawping up at the Hollywood sign while some locals, standing in their front yard, squinted at our license plates and wondered why they didn't say Nebraska or something.

So, those cool things: the La Brea Tar Pits and the Hollywood sign. And palm trees. I still love palm trees. I've lived in Southern California for almost 20 years now, but in my heart of hearts I am still a tourist fool.