Enjoying the Smell of Gurgling Pits

La Brea Tar Pits - Los Angeles, California

Spending a day in Los Angeles last December allowed us to make a quick "Pin Stop" at a place that I think I had first seen in the movie Volcano several years ago (yes, that Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones!). If I recall correctly, the La Brea Tar Pits were featured as the initial place where the volcano of LA first made its presence known by making the already bubbling pits even more bubblier(?).

Main La Brea Tar Pit

Our stop here came in the middle of a regular Monday - where we parked in the paid parking lot across the street to the park.  I was pleasantly surprised that the La Brea Tar Pits were more than just a fenced-in tar pit but rather a larger space and museum that was spread out in Hancock Park, providing ample opportunity to walk around and enjoy.

As we entered the park, the first thing we took notice of was the smell.  The tar pits emitted a strong smell through the area from the methane gas that is expelled through its gurgling bubbles.  The pits are fully fenced in with some playful statues of mammoths and mastodons to help illustrate how these prehistoric animals may have interacted with and got stuck in the pits.  As you walk further around the park, you'll find other smaller pits and excavation sites where researchers are continuing to discover fossil remains of sabertooth tigers and other early animals.  We saw many tar-covered fossils that were on display in a still-active dig site.

Page Museum

In addition to the surrounding park area, the Page Museum is also located here, where you can learn more about the history of the pits and animals that roamed the region.  Unfortunately, we did not have the time to take in the museum at this time, and I'm sure it's worth a stop in the future.



Pin Stops Ranking: 4 Pins

An interesting landmark and park to visit if you're looking for something unique and historical in Los Angeles.  The city seems have to have done a nice job preserving the area, so people can enjoy the history of the place.

Speeding Through Indianapolis

Racing Hall of Fame

In 2012, I had the chance to do what I always wanted to do - take a cross-country roadtrip!  One of the "pinstops" on our journey took us to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in of course, Indianapolis, Indiana.  Now, I'm not a big racing fan, and I really don't know much about the sport - but who has not heard of the Indy 500?  If you're going to drive through this city, then you have to checkout the place where The Greatest Spectacle in Racing is held every year, right?

So with a few hours to visit, we found our way to the Speedway by driving into a tunnel that went under the track and into the center area where the Racing Hall of Fame building can be found.  For a small entrance fee (only $5!), you can enter the museum and take a gander at an incredible display of over 70 vehicles ranging from concept cars to special Formula One cars to past Indianapolis 500 winners - including the very first Indy 500 winner from 1911!

Walking the Back Trails of Fallingwater

About an hour plus southeast from Pittsburgh, you'll find a unique house in the middle of rural nowhere Pennsylvania (actually Mill Run is the name of the town).  This house is known as Fallingwater and was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect who has built incredibly beautiful structures all over the US - however, Fallingwater is usually considered among his best work.

Unless you live somewhat in the area, this is not the easiest place to get to.  I first learned of Fallingwater several years ago when reading about it in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, USA/Canada edition.  However, when researching its location on Google Maps, it's really out of the way from anywhere.  So on a cross-country trip, we made it a midday stopover between a long drive from central PA to Cincinnati, and we were happy we had a chance to see this place with our own eyes.

Love or Hate Him, He Has a Nice House

I was actually a little surprised by this place.  I read about it in a few books, but for some reason, I pictured it as a small historic house in the middle of a highly condensed capital city.  The Mark Twain House and Museum is actually a pretty big mansion in more of the suburban area of Hartford, and it sits high on a hill with its own parking and museum center.  Unless you’re a literary nut or a huge Mark Twain fan, this is probably not a final destination for you, but it makes a nice diversion if you’re roadtripping it from NYC to Boston or vice versa.

We made our stop here on a sunny afternoon right around lunchtime.  The place was quiet with only a few folks walking around the lobby and gift shop.  I discovered that the house can only be seen via the tour, which ran about every 45 minutes and cost $15 per person.  We had just missed the 12 noon tour, and as I was in line to purchase tickets, the 12:45 tour sold out!  While I wasn’t planning to spend several hours here, I wasn’t about to leave either - so I bought tickets for the 1:30pm tour and decided to eat lunch in the area to kill some time.

Before our tour, we watched 15 minutes of the Ken Burns film on Mark Twain’s life.  It was interesting to learn how he grew up in Missouri and penned most of his famous work while in Hartford.  The museum also had two exhibits on many of Twain’s work and influence.  The section on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was perhaps the most interesting since the book was the most controversial piece he had written.  There was also a map of the schools and libraries around the country that have either challenged, removed or banned the book – even still today!

On to the tour of the house – unfortunately, no pictures were allowed.  Our guide was very bubbly, and she seemed to enjoy telling the story of how people in the area knew him as Samuel Clemens and that the house was designed by the family.  Inside, the house had an incredible design for the main visiting areas – the foyer, sitting room, dining room and library.  These areas were fancied up with unique wallpaper colors and intricate wood moldings, especially on the ceilings.  Apparently, the Clemens family wanted to make sure the parts of the house that most people saw was full of extravagant design and architecture – including an indoor garden that sits right off of the library, where supposedly Twain told hundreds of stories to guests.

Bottom left: Indoor garden area

The rest of the house was setup to see how the family lived with their daughters and servants.  One interesting piece was the design of their bed with angels sitting on the bedposts of the headboard and footboard.  They slept backwards with their heads against the footboard, so they could always face the main angels on the headboard to protect them.  The upstairs room was known as an area where Twain would smoke cigars, play billiards and write his material.  This was an intriguing area as you really get a feel of the environment he setup to be inspired to work on his best writings.

While I admit I am not a devoted Mark Twain fan, I do enjoy his work greatly and as required reading back in school, it was certainly interesting to see the place where he raised his family and felt inspired to write some of the most famous stories known.  I find the fact that he used his writings to try to impact the way people think about interracial relationships to be extremely bold and courageous.


Pin Stops Ranking: 2 Pins

While an excellent diversion to breakup a long drive between NYC and Boston, this place is probably most enjoyed by Mark Twain fans who are interested in seeing where he lived while penning some of his best work.  However, it is listed as one of the 1,000 Places to See Before You Die in the USA/Canada edition of the book.

For more on my Pinstop Rankings, check out this post.

Past Rankings - Frank Pepe's, Brooklyn Bridge, Rock Hall

Since I added my official Pinstops Rankings after my first few posts, I thought I'd go back and let you know how I would rank my visits to those places I wrote about.  To read the original posts for these places, click on the title names of each.


Frank Pepe's Pizza - New Haven, Connecticut
Pin Stops Ranking: 4 Pins

I have to say that Frank's exceeded my expectations.  I'm actually biased as I really love NY-style pizza over all others (still do).  I walked into this place thinking there's no way pizza from Connecticut would even compare - but I admit this was pretty darn good.  If I was in the area again, I definitely would have to consider stopping here again to eat.




Brooklyn Bridge - New York, New York
Pin Stops Ranking: 3 Pins

For daily exercise or nice views of the city, the Brooklyn Bridge was pretty cool.  I recommend taking your time crossing this bridge and really soaking in the scenery.  I'm sure many people take this walk for granted but if I lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan, this would be a great walk to commute everyday - except in November thru March. ;)




Giant Free Stamp - Cleveland, Ohio
Pin Stops Ranking: 1 Pin

Let's face it - it's kind of interesting to see, but it's just a landmark in a lonely park of downtown Cleveland.  On it's own, you can't justify driving out to see it, but when combined with the Rock Hall or other places around town, it's a quick "Pinstop" to check it out in person.  This giant stamp is really only for the diehard Pinstopper who just has to see everything.




Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - Cleveland, Ohio
Pin Stops Ranking: 4 Pins

One of the more unique museums around - and definitely for the music lover.  There are several other Hall of Fames in the area, but this place (along with the Pro Football Hall of Fame) are clearly the biggest and best.  The building architecture is very unique, and the inside is filled with hours of reading, films, music and memorabilia.  You can easily spend all day here enjoying remnants of your favorite artists from several music eras.


So what do you think?  If you've been to these places, do you agree with my rankings?  Let me know in the comments below.  As always, thanks for reading!

One Giant Stamp for Man, One Rockin’ Hall for Mankind!

So I had an extra day off for Memorial Day weekend and thought it would be a good opportunity to take a road trip to somewhere new.  How about a 7-hour drive to Cleveland, Ohio?

The main attraction we wanted to see was the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which sits near the shore line of Lake Erie.  I found a local DoubleTree hotel that offered a “Rock Package” – hotel night, free city parking, buffet breakfast for two, and two tickets to the Rock Hall – for one solid price, so we had to take it.  The DoubleTree was about 4 blocks from the Hall, so it was an easy walk over to the Hall.

One unique landmark on the walk to the Hall is the giant stamp with the word “FREE” on it – created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen and dubbed the "world's largest rubber stamp.”  It’s an odd outdoor sculpture that sits in the middle of a grassy are of Willard Park and not easy to miss.  Apparently, it does attract some tourism – including us for a quick photo op!


The Rock Hall has a pretty cool building design – large triangular shapes with glass windows to the top – it’s a unique structure that helps define the Cleveland harbor front.  I was happy to see that the special limited time exhibit at that time was dedicated to Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen!

The Hall does not allow pictures inside except for its lobby area, so we were not really able to capture most of the cool memorabilia that we saw on film.  Despite this, we took the elevator down to the basement floor which contained most of the exhibits in the museum.  You could spend several hours here reading through every decade of rock music from jazz influences to reggae superstars – this place was filled with tons of artifacts from music’s greatest performers.  There were tribute sections to The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Rollling Stones and many more.  We even saw Michael Jackson’s actual white glove that he used in his videos.  You’ll find everything from Justin Timberlake’s stage outfit to John Lennon’s grammar school report card (which said he could do better if he concentrated more).

True to the triangle shape of the building, each floor going up got smaller and smaller.  The top two floors contained the Bruce Springsteen exhibit with many of his guitars and records on display.  They even had the actual ripped jeans and hat from the “Born in the USA” album cover.  It was fun to see cards and posters from some of the venues he has performed at throughout Jersey.

A few painted guitars in the lobby

One area I was hoping to see was the actual Hall inductees area.  We had been to other Hall of Fames, and I knew there had to be a place that displayed those that were enshrined in the Rock Hall.  For some reason, it was not an easy find, but we did stumble upon it after eating at the little café on the same floor.  There’s a theater at the end of the corridor, and a short tribute film on the Rock Hall inductees had already begun when we arrived there.  As I took a peek into the dark theater, I noticed this thin ramp that walked up and around the circular auditorium.  Despite being dark, I could see on the wall that there were signatures glowing in the dark.  I found it!  This was the list of inductees, shown in alphabetical order by last name and/or band name and enshrined with their signatures.  We walked up the ramp trying to make out the signatures of name after name from Louis Armstrong to Genesis to Bob Marley to Stevie Wonder.  This was a very unique way of putting the inductees all in one place.  We read the entire list all the way to the top, and it was a nice finish to conclude our visit to the Hall.

As probably with most people, the Rock Hall was our main attraction for our visit to Cleveland.  It certainly did not disappoint.  We did other things in and around town, but I’ll save writing about those adventures for another time.