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The Ultimate LA Family Guide
Copyright © 2006-2012 The Teachtopia Network
Page Museum
Last Month our family of 4 plus my mom Cheryl and dad Steve went to the Page Museum
and La Brea Tar Pits on Wilshire Blvd. We had a great time, and here is the background
info you'll need when you go there with your family:
We went on the first Tuesday
in January. Please note that the first Tues. of each month is free admission. If
you go any other day here is the cost:
Adults are $7, Seniors over 62, children ages
13-17 and students with ID are $4.50, children 2-12 years old are $2 and children
under 2 are free.
The museum is open M-F from 9:30 am-5 pm and Sat. Sun and holidays
it is open from 10 am-5 pm.
Outside of the museum is what looks like a huge lake although it is filled with tar. From Wishire Blvd. in the heart of Los Angeles, this is a sight to be seen. There are huge prehistoric animal sculptures coming out of the tar and a gate from keeping all of us from being stuck in the tar.
there are smaller pits all around the park.
The indoor museum called the Page Museum which exists within a larger park like area called the la brea tar pits has exhibits that will interest children of all ages. Logan and Madison liked seeing all the animal bones on display. they waved and said "hi" to the skeletons and the lack of animation from the diecasts of ancient bones had no effect on them.
the museum is one big hexagonal like structure. And basically you take this circular tour of dinosaur exhibits until you reach the exit. while our kids were to young to read about the different dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, there were many kids there older than ours that actually took the time to read about each of the exhibits.
One interesting thing about the museum is that the have a real paleontology lab within it opened to visitors through glass. hollywood could spend a 100 million dollars and they could not create lab as interesting looking as this.. Museum patron after museum patron just kept looking through the glass to see if there was any action.
At the center of the museum there is an outdoor atrium area that is very lush and professionally manicured. madison and logan loved walking through it and seeing its water features
We did see a sign next to the atrium discouraging school groups probably bc of supervision and liability reasons. I don't see why however that can't have the students hold each other's hands and still do a quick walk through it.
normally LAwithKids does not mention gift shops or go into any great detal about them, but the one at the page museum was top notch. if your kids are into dinosaurs, they have artificats, toys, and books that would be of interest to the very young dinosaur lover all the way up to a practicing paleontologist.
outside the page museum there was an operational excavation pit on display. although we were able to see the pit were the men and women would excavate the bones from, there was no one working it at the time..
I have read in the latimes before about how much has yet to be pulled out of the
area surrounding the museum. It is quite interesting to know that there will be discoveries
for years to come.
for lunch we went to calendar's. for those of you not familiar with calendar's it is an upscale marie calendars located right on wilshire blvd literally steps from the tar pits. I have to tell you...forget what you know about the look of Marie calendar's because this restaurant is architecturally gorgeous from the inside out. while this may sound like a commerical for calendar's and their food, I have to say that the food here as well as another marie calendar's we went to recently is much better than the marry calendar's of the past. the salads, main dishes and the large sandwiches ordered by my husband, myself, my parents, and the kids were great.
For those of you planning a day adjacent to the La brea tar pits I should tell you that the museum is very close to
an excellent automotive museum called the peterson museum which will be the subject of an upcoming podcast, the zimmer a children's museum which was featured on podcast # 16 , and of course LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art