How and why to visit the La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, California


If you're the kind of person who likes museums, and displays, and guided tours, you really won't like the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.

Don't get me wrong, there's a museum there, and displays, and even guided tours, but if you spend your time there you'll miss seeing the tar pits. And that's because it's simply a chunk of land that was set aside years ago with masses of oozing tar. Personally, I've always loved going to the tar pits. My sneakers were always stained with tar when I lived in LA.

When I used to go there, in the 1980s, there was no admission to the tar pits, and I can't imagine that there is one now, although parking has gotta be more difficult. The tar pits are simply a big grassy area, and when you walk around, you get tar stuck in the soles of your shoes. If you sit on the grass, your pants get stained with tar. You can smell the tar, it oozes. It smells terrible.

I've gone to the tar pits many times alone and a few times with friends. And I've never met anyone who more than the mildest interest in the tar pits, they usually head over to museum to see the displays, and maybe get a guided tour. I stay outside, and imagine Los Angeles not only in the Ice Age, but back before it had all been covered over with asphalt, and freeways.

La Brea means "the tar" in Spanish, and that's what the whole area of Los Angeles was, a mass of gooey, tarry, swamps. Go Google "La Cienga" and you'll see what I mean. And so transforming Los Angeles into a place where people could live, without the stench of tar, or swarming mosquitos, was quite an achievement.

When I go to the Tar Pits I time-travel. I go back to the Ice Age, and I also go back to the days before Wilshire Boulevard was paved. To me, it's fascinating, and I can never get enough of that feeling. And all I have to do is to stand there.
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