Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Today we hit the freeways of the Los Angeles area with the MH and toad.  We had to drive from Simi Valley to Yorba Linda - a distance of about 90 miles, all on the freeways.  Most of the time the traffic was, in my opinion, fast and heavy. 

The Nixon Library and Museum was our destination in Yorba Linda.  The Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is the 11th of the 12 presidential libraries that we have visited.  The only one we haven’t seen is the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, MI.  I mistook the location of the Gerald Ford Museum as Ann Arbor rather than Grand Rapids when we went through Michigan on our way to Canada. By the time I discovered that the museum was in Grand Rapids, we were way past it.  Maybe next year!

This library was dedicated in 1990 for the 37th President of the United States.  His birth place and grave site are next to the library.  The museum is full of exhibits because president Nixon was involved in government for most of his adult life.  The exhibits cover his terms as representative, senator,  two terms as vice president during the Eisenhower administration and his two terms as president.  Oh, not quite two terms; Watergate shorten his second term.  What a senseless waste of presidential power.  Both Richard M. Nixon and his wife Pat are buried at the library.

The photos below are of the garden/reflecting pool area and of his boyhood home and birthplace.

To the left is Nixon as the vice president.  Next are campaign pictures from the ‘68 campaign.  The sign below says it all.  When Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960, he got out of politics for a few years.  This sign just seemed interesting to me.

These are some interesting statues in the museum.  They are all to perfect scale and represent world known personalities (leaders).  You can double “right click” any photo and enlarge it to get a better look.  How many people can you identify?

This is a “Moon Rock” from the one of the trips to the moon.

This is one of the large paintings in the replica of the East Room of the White House.  This is one of my favorite presidents, Theodore Roosevelt.

The below photos are of Pat Nixon and both of the Nixon’s head stones.