La Brea Tar Pits and Museum

Not only does this museum give you a peek at local prehistoric flora and fauna long before Hollywood CGI could create them, its deliciously corny and retro exhibits are reason enough to visit. Beginning at the still-oozing and sulphur-stinky tar pits on the grounds outside the building—with fake mastodons caught in the muck and on the solid ground beside it—the mood is old-school museum, but the science is real. Fossil excavation is ongoing and one of the galleries inside has an illuminated wall display of the skulls of hundreds of dire wolves pulled from the tar. (The ever-hungry wolves would be unable to resist the delicious sight of helpless animals stuck in the tar, and would venture in for the kill, only to get trapped themselves). The museum has not abandoned some of its old-fashioned showmanship, including a couple of animatronic displays, one of of saber-toothed tiger mechanically attacking a giant sloth. In a city full of modern sophistication and invention, the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum are able to educate about the city’s distant and not-so-distant past.