November 28th, 2025

California: Dinosaurs and Planets (Post 2/3).

Traffic is fun.

California Trip: Post 2/3:

This week’s post was quite an adventure to put together. Compared to last week’s post, it has way more photos, and as a results lots of content.

We went to two places this day: The Natural History Museum (the one in Exposition Park), and Griffith Observatory.

Getting there was “fun”. We sat through about two hours of traffic just to get to downtown LA. Upon arriving, we were able to find a parking spot, as it turns out there was practically nobody in that parking lot. That was a relief.

Last time I went to the history museum was about two years or so ago. It was weird. They had construction going on, and we got kinda lost last time. This time, they had finished the construction, though for some reason or another I didn’t take any photos of the entry area. Oh well.

The natural history museum is mostly animals. I don’t recall seeing any living ones, and as a result they’re dead animals. It’s still very interesting, and it’s what I took photos of this time around. I have been there before, once in 2023, and once quite a while ago (probably over 10 years ago).

Upon giving them your money, you walk into an entry hall of sorts, this big dome thing with a dinosaur of sorts under it. From there, there are halls with stuffed animals (dead real ones, I think) off to either side, along with access to the dinosaur exhibits.

Dinosaur in the entry hall you walk into after giving them your money for a ticket.

Hall of stuffed animals. This is one of those things I actually remember from over a decade ago.

Stuffed bison or something like that.

We ended up going to the dinosaur one next. Lots and lots of dinosaurs.

Dinosaur. It's the one with the pointy horn. Triceratops or something.

Another dinosaur. This one dosen't have the pointy horn and is different.

Even more dinosaurs. These appear to be two dead ones eyeballing an even more dead one laying down on the ground.

I think this is a Tyrannosaurs Rex Head.

More dinosaurs.

Extra dinosaurs.

After walking through all of the dinosaurs, you end up in this big dome room. I took a photo of the dome.

Dome in the werid main circle room thingy. There's also an ugly statue, of which I did not photograph.

There is a room with mammals on the other side. Much like the dinosaur room, it has two levels. It was also a lot colder. We wanted to get to the second level, and we took the elevator.

That elevator was awful. We were with someone who needs an elevator to get to an upstairs easily. So we all piled in the elevator, despite there being a sign saying “Max 2 People”. The elevator’s own sign said “Max 8 People”. It wouldn’t budge. So most of us, with the exception of me and two others, got off of the thing. It has to be the worst elevator I’ve ridden in. It was rickety, creaky, sounded like it was going to fall apart at any second, and UGH. It was terrible and actually a bit scary. There was also no “elevator certificate” that I could see in there, as another negative bonus points for that elevator. I wish I would have taken a photo or video.

And, of course, some mammal photos:

Mammoth or something? I can't remember, and the photo is not clear enough.

Wide-angle photo of the room with all of the mammals in it. None of them are alive.

We then went back down, out of the mammal room (after walking on both levels), back through the dinosaur thing, all the way upstairs to the bird and whatnot exhibit. They had a big nautilus too.

There was a bird exhibit upstairs. As a chickeneer, I had to take a photo of this chicken. Phoneix fowl or something like that.

Big nautilus.

There is also a freight elevator, which I did take a photo of. Long long ago, we actually went for a ride in one of these. The main elevator wasn’t working that day from what I remember. If you have a chance to ride on one of these freight ones I’d take it.

Freight elevator. I've actually been for a ride on one of these.

And, back downstairs, the gem room. There is a lot of stuff to see in that room. Too much to take photos of. There is also a vault with expensive pricey gems in it. We had to wait to get in, as there was a school group going in, and that vault is small, stuffy, and creepy.

Gem room. Too much to take a photo of. Decided one wide angle photo would do.

There was this kinda-creepy vault in the gem room. These gems were in there. I liked this photo enough to put it here. You can see my phone in the reflection. You can't touch the glass, otherwise they'll yell at you. Someone did by mistake and got yelled at.

To wrap up the history museum photos, I found this photo I’d taken in 2023. From what I remember, I’m pretty certain the whole world was covered under water.

Hmmmm.... Reminds me of a story I've read before.

Outside the history museum, on the walk back to the parking lot, I took a couple photos.

"J Turn" sign. Never heard of such a turn, and now I wonder how you would do a J turn.

The pavilion thingy in front of the science museum. I always liked the pink color it outputs. It's prettier in person, and massive if you're 5 years old.

After the history museum, we went to the Griffith Observatory. Despite only being a few miles away, it took around 45 minutes to get there. Parking was not too hard. As with the history museum, we did have someone with us who could not walk up the hill all the way there, and they let us park in the main parking lot. If you’re going to Griffith and want parking, bring someone who’s handicapped. They just might let you park up there. Handicapped plates or placard help as well.

It has been years since I’ve been there, probably over a decade as well. We did try to get in on a trip to CA in 2022, however, thanks to the COVID thing, we couldn’t. This time, there was no COVID nonsense, and we were able to get in with no problem.

I took lots of photos here, and, unlike the history museum, I used my camera, not my phone, for most of them. The camera did really well on outside photos, but I’ll go through the inside ones first.

There are two areas in the observatory museum thing: The upstairs, full of ancient-looking exhibits (they have aged pretty well), and the downstairs, which is much more modern. The following photos are from the upstairs. We went through the upstairs first.

Pole thingy with live sun view.

Live sun view.

Sun thingy on ceiling. Sun goes through it but I forget what it's for. It's in the room with the live sun view.

Fucalt pendelum.

More Fucalt pendelum.

We then went to the downstairs basement thing. It’s much more “modern”, and from what I can tell (including the plaques and Wikipedia) is from around 2006. Last time I went there was probably over a decade ago. I remember this room as being much larger. As it turns out, growing taller and bigger means stuff seems to shrink. It also turns out that, with this room being a product of the early twenty-first century, that it seems a lot less modern than it was ten years ago. Also, some of the planet models were dusty. It was easy to see (with human eyes) that Saturn had its rings covered in some dust. They also have scales down there that can show you how much you would weigh on any given planet. It turns out that I could lose some weight on Mars. Should have taken a photo of that.

There were plenty of things I could have taken photos of, but I wanted to see as much as possible without waving my camera everywhere, and we were in a rush, as there was going to be a Tesla coil demonstration upstairs in about 15 minutes or so.

Bottom room basement thing. I didn't really get good photos, let alone lots of photos down there. It seemed dustier and smaller than last time I went in there.

Satrun. I always liked the big planet models. Saturn was dusty.

The moon model that spins. I really liked this one too.

And, of course, the Tesla coil upstairs. Glass is one of my least favorite barriers in front of things when trying to take photos, and this Tesla coil had plenty of it blocking it from killing people. It made getting photos hard, but at least I got my photos.

Tesla coil. The reflective nature of the glass made it hard to photograph.

We waited and got front-row seats to the Tesla coil demonstration. The photo was ruined once again by glass.

Outside was fun. There was lots to point my camera at. Paths, trees, smoggy views, and generic things like the Hollywood sign that happens to be right next to a dam are all there.

Hills outside Griffith. I took lots of photos there.

There was a trail right down the hill. I took a photo of that as well.

Hollywood sign. There's a dam right behind it. (LA dams have some dark history).

LA skyline. It was very smoggy that day, and as a result I didn't get crystal-clear photos of it.

Another photo of the trail.

More LA.

And, of course, the telescope.

"To Telescope" sign. I really like the font on it.

"Telescope Entrance" sign. I wish I would have thought to photograph it from the other side.

The telescope. Glass causes reflections. Reflections aren't that pretty in these kinds of photos.

The clocks in the telescope thing. The "Pacific Time" clock is pointing at "2" and "14".

And more outside photos.

View of the lawn from the part by the telescope thing.

The elevator that goes into that basement with the planets. I think this is one of the best photos I got the whole trip.

Front of Griffith. I took this while walking.

Telescope.

After that, we went back to the place we were staying at, and, of course, there was LOTS of traffic. Took around 2 hours to get back home. As much as I like California, the traffic really is annoying. I suppose you could finish a few Rosaries while sitting in your car though.

Other Stuff

For some added variation to this post, might as well include the normal updates here. It’s been hitting the 30s (Fahrenheit) almost every morning now, with the days seeming to stay in the 60s now.

The chickens have started to really finish up and polish off their lovely moults. Dominica is the only one who seems to be hesitating on really moulting that hard.

And I’ve been working on a lovely benchmark project as of late. In this case, it’s a HandBrake video encoding test. I’ve finished quite a bit of it, and I’m excited to publish it, Godwilling sometime next year. I don’t think it’ll be done by December, but if it is, I may just post it early. It’s by far the most ridiculous long project I’ve started and I’m hoping it’s useful to more people than just me.

Felicitas and Gaby.

To end off the post, California river thing:

River with water.