Hello, gas guzzlers and fossil fuels, and welcome to the Jurassic Pit of SoCal! Yes, today the beans stop by to check out one of the area's most unique attractions, the La Brea Tar Pits. It's here in beautiful downtown L.A. that deposits of sticky oil have oozed up from the ground for the past 40,000 years or so. (Poor L.A. Earthquakes, smog, wildfires, and the occasional riot. Hey, why not bubbling goo, too?) So when the oil reached the surface it turned into sticky asphalt, which in turn stuck to just about any creature that had the bad luck of stopping off here for a drink. Since it's still probably not a very good idea to jump into the tar pits (no matter how much your buddy dares you to), the beans wisely decided to check out the action from the safety of the railing. See? They may be canned, but they're certainly not dumb.

So for 40,000 years, creatures big and small found themselves on the losing end of the tar, and met their maker while buried deep in Black Gold. But if there's a bright spot to all this death and despair, it's that their bones remained fossilized underneath the goo, and in the early 20th century geologists discovered the motherlode of all Ice Age fossil beds. More than 600 specials of animals and plants have been found, and more than 100 tons of fossils have been excavated over the past 70 years or so. Flintstone-era creatures such as saber-tooth tigers and mammoths have been fished out of here, as well as modern day critters such as the occasional rabbit or pigeon that obviously didn't realize that this isn't the place to loiter. So here the beans say a tearful goodbye to Mr. Mammoth, who is slowly sinking into the La Brea quagmire. We're hoping that the Missus and her little one still up on the bank at least remembered to ask him where his life insurance policy is.

If you were to drop by the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits today, you'd find the Page museum, where you can learn more about what life was like in Los Angeles 40,000 years ago. (Hint: There was a whole lot less traffic.) You can watch recovered bones being cleaned and repaired, and discover what the Ice Age was really like for the animals that made Icy California their home. So the beans had a swell time at the Tar Pits, and they encourage all of you to stop by and see it for yourself. As for the beans, they actually considered being fossilized for a while, but they decided it was more fun to be sealed inside a sterile can than buried for eternity in oil. Besides, who likes greasy beans?