Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [102]
The observatory has starred in many movies, most famously Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean. Outside, have your picture snapped beside the actor’s bust with the Hollywood Sign caught neatly in the background.
Admission to the observatory is by timed entry and shuttle-bus reservation only, although this may change. Call or check online for details.
LOS ANGELES ZOO & BOTANICAL GARDENS
The Los Angeles Zoo (Map; 323-644-4200; www.lazoo.org; 5333 Zoo Dr; adult/child/senior $10/5/7; 10am-5pm; ) with its 1200 finned, feathered and furry friends rarely fails to enthrall the little ones. What began in 1912 as a refuge for retired circus animals recently also won accreditation as a botanical garden. Still, it’s definitely the zoo’s animal magnetism that brings in over a million visitors each year.
Meerkats are the current squeezables of the Disney set, and one well-placed, big-eyed Timon wows kids entering the zoo. From there, undisputed crowd pleasers include swinging gibbons, frolicking sea lions, posturing chimpanzees, cuddling koalas, and, according to the zoo’s director, anything currently defecating. Tots gravitate to Adventure Island with its petting zoo and hands-on play stations as well as the Children’s Discovery Center.
The zoo also participates in the recovery program of the endangered condor; some 126 chicks have hatched here since the ’80s.
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN WEST
Want to know how the West was really won? Then mosey over to this excellent museum (Map; 323-667-2000; www.autrynationalcenter.org; 4700 Western Heritage Way; adult/student & senior/child $9/5/3; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun, to 8pm Thu Jun-Aug; ) whose exhibits on the good, the bad and the ugly of America’s westward expansion rope in even the most reluctant of cowpokes.
Start downstairs, where a soundscape of music, hooves and whinnying leads you through a frontier village to a nymph-festooned saloon with some interesting cheating devices used in gambling. Nearby, the Wyatt brothers take on their adversaries in the infamous 1881 shoot-out at the OK Corral, re-enacted here in an animated diorama. A glass case holds the original gun used by Doc Holliday, one of the fight’s participants, and a precious collection of Colt firearms, and Annie Oakley’s gold-plated pistols are also on display. Other galleries test the romantic myths of the Old West against its harsher realities, deal with the clashes between conquerors and Native Americans and examine the roles played by successive waves of immigrants.
Kids can pan for gold, explore a stagecoach, watch themselves riding like Zorro on TV or get a hands-on history lesson about Chinese family life in 1930s LA. Year-round gallery talks, symposia, film screenings and other cultural events further spur the imagination. In summer, a popular music series is held outside on Thursdays. Excellent café, too.
TRAINS, TRAINS, TRAINS
The delightful outdoor Travel Town Museum (Map; 323-662-4253; www.traveltown.org; 5200 W Zoo Dr; admission free; 10am-4pm Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm Sat & Sun, one hr longer during daylight savings; ) displays dozens of vintage railcars and locomotives, the oldest one from 1864. Kids are all smiles imagining themselves as engineers, clambering around the old-timey iron horses or riding a miniature train ($2.50). A huge hall holds historical fire engines and a model-train network, which a dedicated local hobby club operates, usually on weekends from 10am to 4pm.
Just east of Travel Town, the Los Angeles Live Steamers (Map; 323-662-8030; www.lals.org; 5202 Zoo