Our kids loved the tar pits, which are eerie but fun.

You enter the main building, which is a low-rise square building. The hours are 9:30am to 5:00pm each day. The cost is $7.00 for adults and $2.00 for kids.

The first thing off the lobby is a theater with a very simple movie that explains what happened here and why there is a such a wealth of fossils at this sight. It's a good first start for the rest of museum. The museum is small with lots of bones of sabre-tooth tigers, Mammoth and other Ice Age animals (no dinosaur). One exhibit the kids love is trying to pull out a metal can from the sticky, pully tar - it's harder than it looks!

There are also anthropologists still working here and they can be viewed cleaning and cataloging bones and fossils. It’s very well done. The story is simple and you really understand the place by spending an hour here.

There is a great gift shop with some fun learning tools for kids. The staff is friendly and helpful and will answer any questions you may have on the pits.

There is plenty of street parking around the pits. The area was once a little dicey but now seems very safe. You will never be able to spend a whole day at the pits (not enough to see), but you can combine with LACMA, which is next door, and have a nice balance of science and art!

More information about the Tar Pits can be found at Tar Pits.

Okay, I admit it. I knew it was tar. But wasn't that a dramatic intro?

Seriously, this place is definitely worth a visit. I enjoyed learning about all the animals (and at least one human) who got trapped in the tar pits so many thousands of years ago, and watching the scientists who are still sorting out the fossil remains to this day. An entire wall is covered with hundreds of dire wolf skulls, but my favorite fossil has to be the sabre-toothed cat. I believe his scientific name is Smilodon californicus, but he'll always be Smiley to me. I also bought a tiny rubber mammoth at the gift shop.

For more information, visit the Page Museum's excellent and informative Web site at http://www.tarpits.org.

The automotive museum across the street is worth a look. L.A.'s museums are really not that great compared with New York though they seem to think that the new Getty had suddenly brought the rest of them to a higher level. There was even a recent article in the New York Times praising the LA museums. I, however, stick to the old joke, what's the difference between yoghurt and L.A.? Yoghurt has an active culture.

Let's face it, people come here for the sun and the plastic surgery. But, if you really want to see some good art, there's a good collection of galleries by the corner of Cloverfield and Olympic in Santa Monica.