Tell people you're planning a trip to Death Valley with kids, and you're likely to get a response that implies either admiration or an assumption that you're crazy. Or both. That's OK; Death Valley may not be the most obvious choice for a family vacation, but that is definitely part of the appeal. It's a valley full of "I've never seen that before!" with a hint of Old West ghost town.

First let's set the record straight: Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. Mexico celebrates its independence on September 16, and—while the festivals might look similar—confusing the two holidays is as gringo as, say, putting pastrami in a taco. (Actually, scratch that—LA is pretty darned proud of its pastrami tacos.) Let's simply agree that just because the US named its independence holiday 4th of July doesn't mean that Cinco de Mayo (5th of May) is Mexico's independence day. What the day actually celebrates is an underdog Mexican victory over a French military attack on Puebla, Mexico in 1862. The holiday is mostly observed in Puebla and in Southern California, where there's little mention of the French, but much swinging at piñatas and dancing to mariachis. After all, by the first weekend of May, who needs more excuse than that to revel in the sunshine?

Few things are more universal than cute panda videos. Even people who can resist the internet's most infectious silly cat videos melt in the face of an insanely cute panda bear rolling around hugging himself in a Facebook share. The California Science Center embraces this inescapable truth with a full-on bear hug. This past weekend the museum's IMAX theater debuted the movie Pandas, a nature documentary for the whole family. Imagine the cutest collection of baby panda clips ever made. Now imagine them in 3D on a screen seven stories tall. It's a level of cute few people can handle, but we all should try.