California
Sunday we made our way over to Joshua Tree National Park. It really is a beautiful place. The Joshua trees are a knarled, twisted tree with leaves that are similar to those found on a Yucca. This park is full of them! I believe they said the oldest was about 700 years old. The park was also full of interesting rock formations. It was pretty cold and windy – so we didn’t do much exploration (let me re-phrase that – Julia and I stayed in the car while Chris & Jess explored for about 20 minutes!) We drove to the highest point in the park – which had a beautiful view down into Baja – but it was soooo windy – that we took a couple of quick pictures and ran back down to the car. :-)
Monday we managed to find an RV park in San Dimas (I had the sudden urge to watch Bill & Ted’s Big Adventure). We set up camp and then drove the girls over to see where their Great-Grandparents used to live. (Chris’ parents are both from Southern California). Tuesday we did the NBC Studio tour – pretty uneventful – but we did see the Tonight Show set (it’s a lot smaller than it looks on TV, thanks to some special camera that really make things look bigger!) We also saw one of Jay Leno’s many cars. The employees say that while most of us change clothes every day and drive the same car, Jay wears the same clothes to work each day (denim shirt & jeans) and drives a different car. We then drove over to Hollywood and saw the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the footprints in front of Gromann’s Theatre. There are definitely quite a few characters in Hollywood (and I mean that quite literally!) We had our picture taken with Spiderman and Cookie Monster. Julia held a little snake offered to her by a Gothic vampire-looking lady (who was actually very friendly!) We also drove around Beverly Hills trying to convince the girls that every house belonged to a movie star – the little houses to little stars and the big houses to big stars – they almost bought it! We spent the rest of the evening visiting with Chris’ Uncle Bud and Aunt Gayle. We hadn’t see them in several years and it was nice catching up.
Wednesday we checked out of the RV resort and drove up to Simi Valley to see the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. They had just recently opened the exhibit that features the Air Force One that was in service from 1973 to 2001. They also had a Marine One (the helicopter) and one of Reagan’s Presidential Limousines. The museum itself is atop a hill that overlooks the valley – it was a beautiful sunset. We were also able to visit Reagan’s grave there. This was our last stop before heading home– but wouldn’t you know it – just before we got to the freeway the bus just died at a light. It was acting like it wasn’t getting fuel (but we had plenty!) Let’s just say that they uppity people in Simi Valley did NOT like that a big, old school bus was tying up traffic at rush hour is their little town! The police station was getting swarmed with calls – but they sent out someone to direct traffic. Our tow truck finally arrived – about an hour later – and pulled us around the corner. Chris started running some diagnostics on the fuel pump – tightened a wire – and the baby fired right up! The tow truck driver was great – he followed us about 14 miles just to make sure we were ok. We’re almost home now – just entering Sacramento. It’s hard to believe this trip is over – 3 months to the day from when we left. We definitely had God’s hand on us in this trip – no serious problems – we were safe – and He gave us GREAT weather (. We come home with lots of great memories, a wonderful appreciation for our country and it’s history, and seven CD’s of pictures (which I promise not to turn into a four hour slide show to torture you all with!). Thanks for joining us on our journey!
Next stop……to be continued next year….
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