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Our Trip
November 19, 2001- Day Two- Decompression click HERE
for Day Two Photos Questions for Ms. Foster's Classroom: What is a fossil? What do the following animals look like: Saber Tooth Cat, Shasta Ground Sloth, and Woolly Mammoth? Think about the 400 wolves who were all the same type of animal - yet different in small ways. Now think about the students in your class. You are all unique - yet similar - in many ways. Find someone in your class and find two ways that you are the same and two ways that you are different. Paige's Comments: One of the true signs that you're getting older is that you just can't handle travel like you used to. I remember being in my twenties and driving back and forth across the country, to and from college, racking up 18-hour days behind the wheel of my little green Toyota and hardly feeling the effects. Yesterday we got up, threw some suitcases together, flew to Los Angeles, and it practically wiped us out. Which is why it was nice to have a day to just relax, finish up some loose ends in the paper-work department, and try to catch our breath before tomorrow, which is going to be a 27-hour day when all is said and done. Ann nudged me at 5 a.m. to see if I was awake. I was after she nudged me. She'd been awake since 2:30 a.m. after a full four hours of sleep. Makes sense: she gets up at 4:30 in Scandia each day, so she was right on schedule. And felt the effects all day. We each did some job-related work, hit breakfast at 8:30 in the Park Hyatt dining room, and after some rearranging of suitcase contents, blasted out of Century City in our convertible Camaro at 9:30 for some final copying and notarizing of travel and adoption documents. The Kinkos in Beverly Hills had valet parking, which we passed on and parked with the commoners on the street. With all the copies and signatures in place, we drove down Wilshire for our nod to tourism; a one hour stop at the La Brea Tar Pits. Now, I did a year of college here, and have been here innumerable times on business and recreation but this was my first visit to this attraction. And I have to be honest; it was actually pretty cool. (Unfortunately a sidetrip to the Alhambra nicotine pit had to be put off until next time.) From there it was down Pico to Spanish Broadcasting's KLAX/La Raza, which is the station I consult out here. Fun to visit with Pio, Juan Carlos, Paul, Ana and the gang, and we took Ana Ordonez's suggestion of Lares for lunch. THE most outstanding Mexican food in Los Angeles. Dropped the top, took the scenic route up through Bel Air and the hills, down Sunset and back to the Hyatt. Spent an afternoon relaxing and sitting in the fitness club's jacuzzi. My niece Abby pulled in at 6:30 for some dinner at the hotel. Abby is from the KC side of the Nienaber Clan and goes to Masters College out in Santa Clarita. She's looking at maybe getting into film production, and has even been in a music video during her two years out here. So she has her foot in the door already it seems. And that was Monday. Up at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Out by nine. Fly at 12:30 on Asiana to Seoul where we'll get a quick night's sleep on Wednesday (we pick up a day) at a hotel inside the terminal, and then it's a two hour hop over the Yellow Sea to Beijing. We meet
Sophia a week from today. Amazing. Had a great dinner at Mr. Chow last night with some friends we knew from Charlotte, North Carolina (where we used to live). Our cab driver wasn't sure where it was so we drove around for a while and saw some of Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. The Christmas lights are up - lots of stars hanging over the street. There were also pretty multi-colored banners that had stars on them that were lit. Mr. Chow is a Chinese restaurant. Wayne ordered a lot of different appetizers and main courses. Amazing food. Although both of us were tired, the evening was really fun and we left energized. Going back to the hotel we wondered why we let so many years go by between seeing our friends. We shouldn't do that any more. After breakfast we went on a short walk in the hotel garden. Everything smells so fresh here - lots of bright flowers, green grass, and trees with leaves. Then we went to the La Brea Tar Pits. There was one part where excavation was done many, many years ago. Since that time water has filled the pit. Today, you can see methane gas bubbling to the surface and tar floating along the banks of the pit. As you walked around the pit it smelled like it does when asphalt is being poured to repair roads. They had models of three mastodons in one corner of the pit, with one of them sinking. Apparently thousands of animals lost their lives because they got stuck in the pit. We went into the museum and there were fossils of large animals - like the California Saber Tooth Cat, Shasta Ground Sloth, and Woolly Mammoth. Paige won't say this, but he was freaked out by the Woolly Mammoth (it moved and roared). There was also a section of birds that they had reconstructed - some perched on limbs and others in flight. Amazing the size of some of the wing spans of the birds - very similar to an eagle in size. Another interesting display was the Dire Wolf Skulls. They had 400 skulls mounted. This was to represent the over 1,600 skulls they had recovered from the pits. Each skull, they said, is different even though they are the same type of animal. Much like humans. Drove
around a bit in the afternoon before returning back to the hotel.
This evening we had a really nice dinner with Abby at the hotel
restaurant. Great to see her and to spend time catching up with
her. |