Day 7 -- Trip from Valencia Travel Village to the Ronald Reagan Museum and Return -- 100 Miles

Today we did something we've been wanting to do for many years and that is to visit the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum. Traveling in California is ALWAYS a chore with its super high gas prices, zillions of impatient drivers buzzing you on every side, and "freeways" clogged and tedious to drive. Still, since our main objective this trip was to visit relatives in both our extended families, it seemed like the best time to visit President Reagan's domain high in the hills near Santa Clarita, California.

Concetta worked hard to find the closest full-hookups camp to our quarry, but it was still an hour away by freeway. But we dutifully packed up this morning, assured the camp hosts that we'd be back, and set out into the unknown. The first thing I did was turn the wrong way right out of the park which had us approaching the Reagan facility from the east instead of the GPS-recommended west. No matter, we easily found our way and only irritated a half dozen speeding drivers in the process.

We knew a problem awaited us when we got to the museum because their website clearly said that RVs were NOT to park in the regular parking area. We were directed to park on the approach road which unfortunately was on a hill. Well, we try never to park on hills as the refrigeration system is only happy on level ground. But when we reached the parking lot, it appeared that only about 25% of the spaces were occupied, and we could easily park across a measly three or four and inconvenience no one.

So, parked safely in several spaces and as far away from the other vehicles as possible, we made ready for our walk across the grounds. And that's when a knock sounded on the door. I stepped out to find a couple of security cops smiling at me and all set to inform me that I had to park elsewhere. But when they saw my U.S. Navy hat and a smile that matched their own, they backed off telling me I had to move.

Of course I informed them that my refrigerator was not going to be happy if the rig wasn't allowed to remain level, and that caused them to scratch their heads and look around for a possible solution to our problem. In the end they allowed us to back the RV into a single space that had lots of room behind it for the extra-long tail end of our rig to hang over (see photo top right). That done, they could see that the forward part of the RV didn't really take much room over what a large car would occupy.

They asked if they could have my name and phone number just in case they ran out of spaces, and I gladly supplied them with the information. In the end the rig sat just where we parked it for the entire day and the lot still wasn't nearly full when we got ready to leave.

This afternoon, as we were about to leave, we ran into one of the two cops whom we'd talked to that morning, and he turned out to be the lieutenant in charge. He was so friendly that he walked us all the way back to our rig and talked about his life and his career and

the two kids he was raising as a single parent. His name was Tony, and we certainly enjoyed his company and the obvious concern he professed that we should have a terrific day at the museum (photo bottom left).

The Ronald Reagan Library and Museum is 430,000 square feet of the most incredible experience you'll have anywhere. They have everything from the President's personal journal and quotation collection, to his Airforce One Boeing 747 and his Marine Helicopter. The grounds are beautiful, the displays are creative and not too overwhelming, and the staff is perhaps the most friendly and helpful we have ever encountered on our many road trips.

They have a shop full of wonderful books and other memorabilia and they have a cafeteria that produced a lunch for us that totally knocked our socks off. We split the Rueben Sandwich and fries and I had a cup of coffee. We thought our lunch was the best cafeteria food we'd had in years.