Most people already know of our jaunt from Arizona to Washington to South Dakota but my memory is rather short sometimes so I'm going to record it in my blog so down the years, I'll remember. (How's that for a run-on sentence?)
We left Tucson on April 21st after a wonderful worship/baptism service at our church down there. We traveled through desert on our way to Yuma where we stopped to visit with Peter's cousin for the evening. We crossed into California immediately after leaving Yuma and were surprised to see sand dunes with lots of scrub bush. There were several cement rivers/canals - it was really lovely country. I know you don't think the desert is particularly beautiful, DeAnn, but you know I do.
Our first stop in Los Angeles was in Yorba Linda which is where the Nixon Presidential Library is. We arrived in LA on Monday late afternoon so didn't get to the library until Tuesday morning. This is a tree that was right outside our door at the motel and it was in full bloom. Don't know what it was - kinda looked like a bottle brush.
This Bird of Paradise was in the parking lot where we had breakfast. Unusual but beautiful flower. The little cafe where we had breakfast was called Two Sisters and it was run by two sisters. They had lots of little plaques and things about sisters. The one I liked best said: "I smile because you're my sister. I laugh because there's nothing you can do about it."
We opened up the Library at 10:00 and left at 2:30 - could have easily stayed at least another hour but we were on an agenda to beat the traffic on our way to NE Los Angeles to the Reagan Library. The two libraries were 90 minutes apart and it took us almost exactly that amount of time. We had NO problems with the traffic. Must be the fact that I am one terrific navigator and dad is one terrific driver!!!???
I love how almost each library we have visited has a presidential limo - I think they said this one gets 4 miles per gallon.
The Berlin Wall was significant in both presidents terms and the owner of Carl Jr's (Arizona's Hardees) purchased a piece of the wall for both libraries. This is the Communist side - notice very stark facade versus
the free side. They said there was a "no man's zone" on Communist side where no one was allowed unless they wished to be shot while on the free side there was all sorts of graffiti.
When President and Mrs. Nixon visited China, they were very fond of the pandas there so the government of China sent two pandas as a gift to the Nixon's. They eventually found their way to the National Zoo in Washington DC. I even remember hearing on the news about their arrival. This is the actual box that one of them was shipped in.
One of the Nixon daughters, Tricia, was married in the White House Rose Garden and this is the trellis under which they said their vows. It was moved here to the library. The wedding gowns for both of the daughters were part of the exhibits as well as several of Pat Nixon's gowns. I enjoy that part of the museum but I'm not sure Dad even stopped to notice. He spent a great deal of time in the Watergate Room which actually was not that old. They said most of the papers were "classified" and held in Washington DC until recently. A lot of the papers are still considered classified but they are slowly releasing them.
The grave sites of Pat and Richard Nixon. The city of Yorba Linda has an ordinance that says no one can be buried in their backyard so the museum had the city declare a small area on the grounds a cemetery and it was then deeded back to the museum. Think they'd do that for me too?
The museum is actually built on the orchard where President Nixon was born and grew up. This is his boyhood home which was moved from across the street.
That's it for the Nixon Presidential Library. The flowers were amazing. In fact all of the flowers in California as well as Washington were gorgeous. Too bad they weren't as nice when we returned to South Dakota.
Tomorrow is the Reagan Library. Have a wonderful evening. Love to all of you.
Gramma and MOM
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