Reagan Library and the Beach

While visiting a library of a former president didn’t seem too appealing for the younger four members of the family, we decided to follow Bruce Robert’s recommendation. Since I’m the only family member to remember most of the significant events of the Reagan Administration, I was elected to write the blog entry. The Reagan library and Museum is located in Simi Valley, CA which is just north of LA in a very pretty part of the state. The building is the stucco look of the southwest and looks like the Reagan ranch.

Inside, the Christmas of the World display included decorated Christmas trees from about 50 countries. All three girls especially liked to look at all the different Christmas trees and proceeded to take a picture of each one, along with their info on where they were from and how to say Merry Christmas in its particular language. Following the huge array of Christmas decorations from around the world, there were displays about Dutch’s interesting career beginning in radio thru his years as an actor -- most notably as the Gipper at Notre Dame. His move into politics began as Governor of California – “the branch office in Sacramento” and concluded at, “The Home Office in DC” as the 40th President of the United States. His landslide in 1984 of 525 electoral votes to Walter Mondale's 13 electoral votes (95.2% margin) is the largest in history. It was interesting to see the exhibits about the hostages in Iran, his attempted assassination, Operation Urgent Fury -- the battle in Grenada (I remember our 82nd Airborne CPT talking during our entire calculus class about what was probably happening as the Div participated in the first military action since Vietnam.) A large portion of the display is devoted the Cold War and its ultimate end due in large part to the efforts and mentality of the Reagan administration (remember “the Evil Empire?).

One of the highlights of the museum is the section that includes the transportation means that President Reagan utilized. While not as well known as the impressive Air Force 1 which actually flew seven different presidents and Marine 1, the helicopter utilized for short trips, it was nice to see Army 1a and 1b represented in the Museum. All in all, a trip well worth the effort and we concur with Bruce’s recommendation.

After the Reagan Library, we made our way south to Camp Del Mar. This was kind of cool as it was located right on the beach north of San Diego. Camp Del Mar is actually part of Camp Pendleton, a large Marine Corps post. We didn’t do a lot of swimming in the cool 59 degree Pacific Ocean, but it was neat to be playing in the beach in late December. I think the highlight of our stay at Del Mar was on Sunday we had planned to attend church in town since the post chapel was so far from the RV site. I went out to do a bike recon of the route to the church in the morning and was doing that when I saw a sign on post that indicated a chapel nearby. The chapel said that service started at 0900 and since it was already 0815 and I was about 10 minutes from the RV, I didn’t think that there was any chance of getting back in time. I figured I’d go back and if they happened to be up and at ‘em, we’d make it. Upon entering the RV, the only ones awake were Toley and Kik (as usual). I told them that if we could leave in 20 minutes, we could go to the earlier service (this is important to Z-man since the Packers come on at 10 PST). Miraculously, we not only got out of the RV in time, but even made the 2.5 mile uphill bike ride in time for the 0900 start. The service was ok, but Kik got to go to Sunday School for the first time in quite a while. He really enjoyed it. After the service, we listened, on the radio, to the Pack thump the Seahawks and make the playoffs.

The next day was sunny and nice and Zman, Pooh and I braved the 59 degree water and VERY large waves just to say we swam in the Pacific in December. Well worth it.

Another interesting and fun stop in the RV Odyssey.

Peace ~ Dad