Day Seventeen - Lompoc to El Cajon

Back Southward on Saturday, June 14

After leaving Lompoc and the Day's Inn behind us we headed south again on the Pacific Coast Highway.  It was straighter and less hilly than the northern part of the central coast, but not without its highlights.

Off the coast of California is this rock we never heard of; makes that
silly pebble we call Plymouth Rock look pretty lame.

And a pretty good chunk of rock a ways down the coast.

At the Reagan Library and Museum

One of the things we like to do on our round-the-country adventures is to visit presidential museums.  The politics of it doesn't matter; all presidential museums are designed to make the personage appear to be the savior of the world, and certainly this was as thick on the PR as any.  But the fact is that all of our presidents, which the possible exception of William Henry Harrison who never actually served, represent an era in our history.  And no other format brings that history to life quite as well as the presidential library.

Mary Frances with Ron and Nancy.

The oval office replica.  We've seen these at several of the museums;
Ford, Truman and Eisenhower, I believe.

 

Air Force One.  This is the first time we've had one of these to tour.

 

The presidential limousine.

 

Underside of Air Force One.  There's a restaurant directly below it.

Bronze statue of Reagan-Gorbachev meeting.

Though it seems a bit odd, with the Reagan President museum is also a baseball museum, with room after room of memorabilia--old uniforms, baseball cards, artwork, artifacts.

Mary Frances took this picture of a four-foot replica of Fenway Park.

Outside the museum we found Ronald Reagan's burial place:

There is a house on a hillside a short distance away which we believe
is the home of Nancy Reagan.

 On the road again

After leaving the museum, Michelle (our GPS voice) said we should arrive at my cousin Genie's in about three hours, about five o'clock.  Obviously, this was Michelle's first visit to California.  From the moment the words "Los Angeles" began to appear on highway signs, we spent as much time parked on freeways as driving on them.

Most of the license plates were California, sitting there unmoving like the rest
of us.  Do these folks put up with this day after day?

 Dozens of times traffic came to complete stops.  Having HOV car pool lanes didn't help at all.  The drivers paid no attention to the rule of two; even motorcycles used the express lane whenever they felt like it.  Where the heck were Erik Estrada and the rest of the CHiPs gang?  It was close to seven o'clock before we reached cousin Genie's.  But we enjoyed a fine meal, great conversation and a wonderful night's sleep, ready for tomorrow--and no driving at all!