January 17 & 18, 2011

Monday 17~~~~We were back on the road again today, we drove to Fullerton, California where we are staying at the Elks Club, the club sits on a hill and it overlooks the city below. It is really pretty here at night with the view and with no houses or campers around us. It has 3 campsites, and there are only two of us staying here. We even have 50 amp. electricity, so we run the air during the day and the heat pump in the evenings and we don't have to worry about blowing the breaker. Tonight we kept hearing a loud boom, them another boom, boom, boom while we were watching television. Kent thought it must be the traffic down the hill, I didn't know what it was, maybe someone shooting something. Then Kent remembered that Disneyland did fireworks in the evenings, we opened our curtains and looked out our big window and there it was, all those beautiful fireworks going off at Disneyland. We watched them until they were done, that made this spot even more special. I can't believe there has been no one in the third space here, we will definitely remember this Elks Club to stay at again. Tuesday 18~~~~Today we toured President Nixon's Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, it is the birth place of President Nixon our 37th president. The home he grew up in, is open for viewing and it is filled with all the original furniture they had when they lived there. It is such a small house, one bedroom downstairs and one room upstairs for the 4 boys, it had enough room for 2 double beds, one at each end of the room with a pitched ceiling. The kitchen had a wood burning cook stove, a large kettle they used for their hot water and an icebox to keep milk and some things cool. The piano Nixon played when growing up, plus a couple of other instruments are in the living room. They had a large round oak dining room table in the dining-living room combination where they ate and spent a lot of time sitting around it as a family. One of the brothers and his wife had the good sense when their parents died, to put all the family furniture, dishes , pictures, everything in storage. They had the incite to know it might someday be used as a museum. It was a smart thing to do, that is why the home is so charming with all its belongings back where they belong. The Presidential helicopter used by four Presidents is close to the home and burial grounds of President and Mrs. Nixon and is open for tours also. (pictures) One of the pictures is of the inside of the helicopter, there are two long bench seats and two single seats for Mr. and Mrs. Nixon. It had the cutest small liqueur cabinet with monogrammed glasses and white house cards to play. As usual, we spent about 4 hours touring all of this plus the museum which is really huge and done so well. It just seems to go on forever when you start walking through it. They have a re-creation of the executive mansions stately East room up to scale (picture) and it has paintings of different Famous Presidents and on the walls, this room can be rented for weddings and receptions. They also did a re-creation of Nixon's white house office (picture) There is a room where the First Lady's magnificent gowns, both daughters wedding gowns are on display and the armoured limousine (Pictures) There are rooms full of the gifts they received from foreign ambassador's and rulers of other countries, a room where the Apollo 11 moon landing artifacts are and of course pictures of Elvis when he visited the White House and the letter he wrote to the President. The room where they have the tape recorder and all the equipment from the Watergate scandal was quite interesting and they have a phone you can listen to the recording. Mrs. Nixon's rose gardens all were all and around the reflecting pool, they weren't very pretty with it being January, but i know it must be beautiful when they are all blooming. It is a very nice library and museum and if you plan to ever go see it, be sure and have plenty of time to see it all.