Travels WithJohn and Janice

Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

Showing 6 of 236 posts

Hearst Castle on the California coast, 165 rooms and 127 acres of gardens, terraces, and poolsUnited States
8 min read2013

Dateline July 23, 2013, Monterey, Carmel, and the California Coast

Out of Yosemite to the coast and the Monterey Peninsula. The Monterey Fair Grounds RV park, set up among the horse stalls (the 'Don't Wash Horses Here' sign at our water hookup was a nice touch). A walk through Monterey, with a memory or two from a Citrix Systems conference there years ago before we were married, the night they hosted a dinner inside the aquarium. Golf at the Bayonet Course, where the PGA Championship had played in 2012. Phil's Fish Market in Moss Landing, oysters on the half shell and a snapper sandwich big enough to defeat the two of us together. Carmel, the lodge at Pebble Beach, and the bagpiper walking out of the fog on the patio at Spanish Bay at sunset. Then the Pacific Coast Highway south through Big Sur, the elephant seals at their July haul-out, the Hearst Castle, the wines at Adelaida Cellars in Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and an overnight high above the Malibu beach. The Reagan Library was waiting for us in the morning.

#california#monterey-peninsula#monterey
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A par 3 at Torrey Pines South Course, the green sitting on a cliff above the PacificUnited States
5 min read2013

Dateline July 30, 2013, Long Beach to Torrey Pines, Closing the Trip

Out of Simi Valley after the Reagan Library, down the 405 (the freeway only one person in modern history has ever been able to drive fast on, and even he was crawling). Long Beach for a city park overnight near the Queen Mary, then a Mercedes brake job that ate the whole next day. Huntington Beach, with the campsites taken by the US Open Surfing crowds, so a Marriott Courtyard instead. Janice's practice round at Sea Cliff Country Club for the USGA Senior Women's Amateur qualifier, with John caddying. A Safeway chicken eaten next to the rig in the hotel parking lot. Breakfast with Gigi Kimball at Ruby's on the pier. Monday over to Yorba Linda for the Nixon Library. Tuesday Janice's qualifier, a four-putt on the par-three 17th that pushed her into a six-way playoff, and a brutally tough second-year-in-a-row playoff loss. Then Ann and Ruth in Oceanside (who turn out to live in a beach house on the Pacific). And finally Torrey Pines, the South Course, the closing round of more than 1,600 miles down the California coast. Then east toward Arizona, with Lelia and Betty Lou waiting for us.

#california#long-beach#queen-mary
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The Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, where Nixon was born and is buriedUnited States
8 min read2013

Dateline July 29, 2013, The Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library

Out to Yorba Linda for the Nixon Library, on the grounds where Nixon was born and where he and Pat were eventually buried. A personal note for John: this was the library of the first president he ever voted for, in 1968, when you still had to be 21 to cast a ballot. The library handles Watergate up front and well, then walks you through the rest of a long, consequential life: Whittier, Duke Law, the South Pacific in World War Two, the Hiss case, the Checkers speech, eight years as Eisenhower's VP, the loss to Kennedy, the loss for Governor of California, and the comeback that landed him in the White House in 1968. The opening to China. The Brezhnev treaties. The Paris Peace Accords. The Hanoi Hilton POW flag. The long, slow post-resignation work of rebuilding. And the 1994 funeral where every living president attended, with Bill Clinton's eulogy doing the difficult work of asking the country to consider an entire life rather than only its lowest point.

#california#yorba-linda#richard-nixon
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Air Force One (SAM 27000), the Boeing 707 that served seven presidents, suspended in the three-story atrium at the Reagan LibraryUnited States
7 min read2013

Dateline July 26, 2013, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

From Malibu over the coastal mountain roads to Simi Valley, sometimes at 15 MPH around the curves. The drive up to the Reagan Library has a portrait of each president lining the entrance, opening out at the top of the hill onto an extraordinary view across the valley. Inside, a chronological walk through Reagan's life: Eureka College, sports announcer making up the play from a ticker tape, Hollywood, Knute Rockne and the Gipper, World War Two training films, the Screen Actors Guild, the GE Theater years, the slow turn toward conservatism, the 1964 'Time for Choosing' speech, two terms as Governor of California, and on to the presidency. The 'are you better off than you were four years ago' debate, the Hinckley assassination attempt, PATCO, Beirut, Grenada, Reykjavik, the INF Treaty, 'trust but verify.' And the Air Force One pavilion, a Boeing 707 that served seven presidents from Nixon to George W. Bush, suspended in a three-story atrium overlooking the valley. The chocolate cake stories, the Jelly Bellys, the shining city farewell. A long, well-told life.

#california#simi-valley#ronald-reagan
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The west entrance to Yosemite National Park, with two rocks leaning together over the roadUnited States
5 min read2013

Dateline July 21, 2013, The Redwood Forest and Yosemite

The introduction pictures say it all. These parks are some of God's greatest accomplishments. Out of Crescent City and down through the Redwoods. The BenBow Inn for a night, with a great chance meeting at the bar with a Southern California golf pro and a kindergarten teacher, who handed us a list of courses and restaurants. The Redwood Forest itself, where a slice of wood on display tells you how many hundreds of years it takes to grow ten feet in diameter, and the Roadtrek was too tall for the famous drive-through tree (John walked it for us). Cache Creek for golf and a stop at the tribal casino, where Janice discovered the California-specific roulette they run, and pocketed a $25 gas card. Then Yosemite, the west entrance with its two leaning rocks, Lower Falls, the Wawona Tunnel View, and Saturday morning at Glacier Point, looking straight down into the valley we had driven through the day before. Then back on the road for Monterey.

#california#redwood-national-forest#redwood-forest
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