California 5/3/08

We visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and so far, it was my favorite library. There were so many artifacts and videos. I loved seeing video clips of his old movies. The love letters he sent to Nancy were very moving and I also got to see the dresses that Nancy wore. My favorite was this slim red ballgown. We also got to go into Air Force One which was pretty awesome too. It was amazing to see it up close and actually get to walk through it to see the original furnishings (except one secretary’s desk they couldn’t find.) After about three hours though, I was ready for lunch.

After lunch we headed to Channel Island National Park visitor center. Obviously it is not well known because it wasn’t listed on my GPS and people I stopped to ask had no idea what I was talking about. Finally I went into a maritime museum who told me the visitor center was not at Channel Islands Harbor but was located in Ventura. It was pretty windy and cool and after getting information there, we decided we would do the islands on another visit when it was warmer.

We headed towards Santa Barbara and on recommendation from my Twitter friend’s mom, we went up Hwy 154 to San Marcos pass and saw beautiful scenery. The wineries all around were a beautiful picture too. I couldn’t believe how many cops were on the roads though giving tickets. We also went to a cute town called Solvang which was pretty crowded and there were no vacancies at the hotels so we ended up in Santa Maria for the night.