Doing Downtown

The kids started school on Wednesday of this week, bisecting it nicely. Since it was already a short week with the Labor Day holiday, I took the remaining four days off to spend some time with the kids before school kicked in, and some time with Stacy, once it did. On Tuesday we had no other commitments so we headed downtown to do some L.A. exploring. Our first stop was the California ScienCenter in Exposition Park.

Gotta love Hugo...

It was my first time actually going into the center.  (I'd seen an IMAX film in the theater before.)  I was impressed with the place.  Lots of cool demos and exhibits.  They had a pretty nice spaceflight section with old Apolo capsules and such.  L and N both got to participate in some hands on experiments and we all got a chance to experience a 7.2 Los Angeles earthquake the way we all prefer to do so - through the wonders of special effects and an earthquake simulator!

L makes scientific goo!

We also got to take our highly leveraged turn at picking up a 5,400 lb truck.

Even with a super-duper lever arm to work with, N was sorely challenged.  But at least his muscles got really big, as he pointed out repeatedly all day afterwards.

Pull, N. Pull!

Then we went on to downtown proper where we had lunch at my favorite downtown haunt, the Grand Central Market.  Three tortas milanessas and a round of soda and we were happy campers.   

We finished up the trip with a ride up L.A.'s famous funicular, Angel's Flight, and poked around Bunker Hill and the California Plaza.  The dynamic water plaza at the top was alive with synchronized jets and pulses and was a ton of fun to watch.

California Plaza:

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) being all edgy.

Then the trip down and home...