Monthly Archives: July 2008

Today we moved on from San Luis Obispo, CA and made our way down US-101 for about 180 miles to Simi Valley, CA. It was a short travel day so we could dedicate the whole afternoon to visiting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and his memorial on the site.

Ronald Reagan Library

We found the library to be very well done and a great tribute to a man who will likely prove to be the best President of our own lifetimes. One of the interesting themes of the design of the library, besides being externally styled to fit well in its California ranch land setting, is its architectural attempts to sometimes not so subtly replicate various aspects of the feel of the White House. Ok, yes, you forced it out of us…for the record, we actually have had Easter breakfast at the real White House, although it was with President Bush (43), not President Reagan.

Anyway, in total, we spent approximately four hours going through the exhibits which we found to be about the right amount of time to experience the library in pretty good detail.

Some of the noteworthy exhibits included the following:

Air Force One Pavilion

Full Section of Berlin Wall

Full Scale Oval Office Replica

Ronald Reagan Memorial

Finally, we found the following signs placed in various locations around the perimeter of the site somewhat fitting to the notion of duplicating the setting of the White House in Washington, DC.

Tomorrow we finish our journey south along the Pacific Ocean and make the second major left hand turn of the trip onto the origin of Route 66 in Santa Monica, CA so that we can start our trip back towards the east.

Starting from Monterey, CA we headed farther south on the Pacific Coast Highway (US-1) toward San Luis Obispo, CA today. The route took us down past Carmel and through the Big Sur area of California where the wildfires recently burned out the area. The damage from the wildfires was quite evident here and the whole region smelled like the ash from a day old campfire. While US-1 is completely open now, there are still several areas here closed because of the fires and/or the resulting damage.

Big Sur Ashes

Burned Hills in Distance

Burned Landscape of Big Sur

While we didn’t see any actual live flames, we understand the wildfires are still burning here and are still only about 70% contained. Given the very difficult terrain and sheer amount of acreage the fires have consumed, you wonder how they can really control the progress of the fires at all. One thing to note is that while we saw massive amounts of the landscape burned, we didn’t see any places where actual structures along US-1 were damaged nor did we see any places where the fires were able to cross to the west side of US-1…. so hats off to the fire fighters on that one.

After making our way down through the winding road and sometimes gut wrenching precipice views of cliffs and ocean we made our way down to San Simeon, CA. This area is home to Hearst Castle or what is more officially known as the Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument. However, it was originally officially named “La Cuesta Encantada” – Spanish for “The Enchanted Hill” – by it’s original builder William Randolph Hearst. Less formally, Hearst typically referred to the Castle as simply “The Ranch”.

There are four different types of tours available of the estate that covers various different aspects of the 90,000 square foot facility. We opted for the overview tour that works off the premise that you are a guest at the estate and exposed (to some extent) to what a guest in Hearst’s time would have experienced. The place is quite amazing and worth the visit if you are ever in the area.

Hearst Castle Front Entrance

Hearst Castle Main Outdoor Pool

Hearst Dining Room

Oh, and before we forget, why was today Corvette Brochure Sunday? – Well it turns that when we were trying to pick out which color to order our 2007 Corvette in, the Corvette brochure showed a helicopter shot view of a Monterey Red Metallic Corvette driving south from Monterey across the famous Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur. While it ended up being a few years later, today was our day to drive south over the Bixby Bridge in a Monterey Red Corvette.

Big Sur Shoreline and Bixby Bridge

Tomorrow we head out from San Luis Obispo, CA to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the most recently retired Air Force One plane in Simi Valley, CA just north of Los Angeles.

After our nice layover day at Half Moon Bay, CA, we moved on down the coast and made a stop in Salinas, CA for the Salinas Rodeo. This was our first time to a real live Rodeo, so we didn’t know exactly what to expect. It was pretty cool and was kind of like a three ring circus where they have different things going on all at once and several types of events including Bronco Riding, Bull Riding, Bull Fighting, Steer Wrestling, Barrel Racing, Roping, etc. While we didn’t see anyone get injured, the guys wrestling the steers to the ground and/or riding the bulls must have trouble getting life insurance as this is clearly not the safest sport on the planet and must require some combination of bravery and foolhardiness to attempt.

After a few hours at the rodeo, we headed over to Monterey, CA to meet up with Sandra’s cousin Caroline who is in the US Navy and stationed at the Presidio of Monterey. Caroline is stationed there to study foreign languages at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) so that she can learn to monitor and translate the communications of other countries. She first learned Russian and is now learning Chinese there.

Caroline and Tim

Caroline and her friend Tim (who is also in the Navy studying Chinese at the DLI too) showed us the base and also around the town of Monterey including a really good dinner of Hawaiian themed fare at Hula’s. After hanging out there for a bit, we headed back to crash in the quiet comfort of Caroline’s on-base apartment and the thought of being fully secured by the US Military.

Sunday we are driving Big Sur and making our way down to San Luis Obispo, CA.