Today, Lily planned an outing for us to go to the La Brea tar pits. I had never heard of them, and the experience magical (one of kids and my favorite things from this trip). The La Brea tar pits are the only active urban tarpit excavation area in the world (they are in the middle of LA!). The tar pits are not actually tar. They are asphalt, a component of crude oil that was forced to the surface from cracks in the earth’s crust from deeper-lying oil reserves. About 10,000 years ago, these tarpits were the cause of death to thousands of animals. Scientists theorize that a mammoth or sloth would get stuck in the tar, and then predators could resist the temptation and would go to eat the mammoth or sloth and then get stuck themselves. So they have found a lot of predators (see the gallery of 400 dire wolf heads below). There aren’t any dinosaurs that were found because these fossils (well preserved in the asphalt) are more like 10,000-12,000 years old, but there are mammoths, mastodons, teratorns, huge sloths (some 20 feet tall), dire wolves, saber tooth tigers (twice the size of lions) and more. The museum came about when the oil tycoon who owned the fields in the 1800s donated the land to the government for scientific exploration and education when he discovered the fossils. What an amazing thing to do. It was fascinating! Also, we started our visit by watching an incredible video about the ice age and about global climate change generally. We learned that the last ice age ended around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and that during the ice age, the planet was 16 degrees cooler Fahrenheit (on average). The earth has historically gone through ice ages and then come out of ice ages on a cycle. Human activity has now become part of the pattern of change.
I could barely lift the handle because the asphalt was so sticky. 
400 dire wolf skulls 
After visiting the tar pits, we picked up aunt Geri and ate at Goldilocks, a Philippine restaurant, with her. It was so wonderful to visit with her and catch up on her life.
Afterwards we all visited the grave sites of Ben Llamzon, Lily’s dad, and his sister, Aunt V. We FaceTimed with Georgia so she could be part of the experience and we also talked about Ben and Aunt V. and their lives.
We then drove to Malibu and ate dinner at the Beach Cafe at Paradise Cove. Lily and I had a hard time deciding if we should splurge or not on the full seafood spread. Kids were chanting “lobster, lobster” and we took the plunge. It felt right given the moment, and our desire to create experiences together and the food was delicious and memorable. The cafe is very famous and has signed pictures on the wall of all sorts of celebrities.
We stayed the night at a home on stilts on a beach in Malibu. What a day!