Museum Day! Spiders and Hollywood wheels

Day Two in Los Angeles was a pretty relaxed affair today...unless you want to count driving around the city! As usual, I got caught up in rush hour traffic on the freeways. I was on my way to my morning destination, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. There I was, coasting along U.S. 101 when the utility truck ahead of me suddenly braked. I braked hard and toward the end turned onto the shoulder a bit. I watched as the truck accelerated...a bit too quickly...and the big SUV in front of it braked again. The utility truck bumped the back of the SUV...oops! The two vehicles slowly pulled off onto the emergency lane, and I continued on my way. That's how quickly the worst can happen around here!

I arrived at the natural history museum when it opened at 9:30 am. I decided to pay extra to get a package deal for the two special exhibits and a 3D movie. I was most excited to see the Spider Pavilion exhibit, after all, who doesn't like spiders?

Okay, not everyone likes spiders...but, I do! I used to actually feed the spiders in our yard when I was a child. The majority of the spiders on display were orb spiders...those that construct circular webs to catch prey. I can't tell you what their names are, but they were pretty cool!

Aww...aren't they cute? And, I added a wolf spider for good measure! The other special exhibit was also pretty interesting, too. Called Antarctic Dinosaurs, the exhibit featured the work done by researchers excavating fossils on the (mostly) frozen continent. I had no idea there were fossils, let alone dinosaurs living down there! The exhibit had the actual bones and other fossils that they found.

The 3D movie that I watched was called Titanosaur, which is the general name of the largest dinosaurs...and animals...to ever walk the earth. The plant eaters had thick legs, long necks and tails, and small heads. As for the rest of the exhibits, I basically skimmed through them because I've visited this particular museum twice in the past ten years. In the afternoon, I went to the Petersen Automotive Museum. If you've followed along with my blog, you'll know I like auto museums. I have also been to this one before, but I wanted to see their Hollywood Dream Machines exhibition. There were some vehicles that I've seen before, but there was a lot that I haven't. Here are some of my favorites from the exhibition.

Bumblebee (Transformers)

 

Deckard's Spinner (Blade Runner 2049)

 

Mad Max: Fury Road

 

Star Wars X-34

 

TRON Legacy

 

Back To The Future

The rest of the museum had mostly customized cars and motorcycles, as well as vehicles from different motor sports. Those were not as interesting to me as I prefer to see old cars that are in their original condition. After one last (albeit short) trip back to my hotel through the late afternoon rush hour traffic, I treated myself to a Thai food dinner. Tomorrow, I'm outta here! I'm looking forward to getting back to seeing the natural sights with less stressful driving. It also means I'm heading north on the slow trip back home!