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

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum on the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park, New YorkUnited States
9 min read2013

Dateline August 13, 2013, The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

After the JFK Library in Boston, we drove west across Massachusetts and into New York to Hyde Park, on the Hudson, for our sixth and final presidential library of the year: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The library sits on the old Roosevelt estate, dedicated by FDR himself in 1941, the original of the model every other presidential library has followed since. A $35 million renovation had just been completed, with the first major overhaul of the permanent exhibition in seventy years. Twelve thousand square feet of interactive video tables and digital flip-book screens walk you through the most consequential presidency of the twentieth century: Hyde Park, Harvard, the Navy under Wilson, polio at Campobello in 1921 (the cottage we had visited only the year before on our way through New Brunswick), the New York governorship, the inaugural at the bottom of the Depression with the line about fear itself, the fireside chats, the New Deal, the Arsenal of Democracy, Pearl Harbor and the Day of Infamy speech, the unprecedented third and fourth terms, Yalta, and Warm Springs.

#new-york#hyde-park#franklin-d-roosevelt
Read story
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Columbia Point, Boston HarborUnited States
9 min read2013

Dateline August 12, 2013, The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

After a few days on Cape Cod with Janice's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill, we drove into Boston for the JFK Library on Columbia Point. The fourth of our presidential library visits this year. The welcome at the door was more reserved than the others had been, worth noting only because it was so different. The library walks you through Kennedy's life in proper sequence: PT-109 in the Solomon Islands, Harvard, the House, the Senate, the 1960 race against Nixon that included the first televised presidential debate in American history, the inauguration and 'Ask not,' the Bay of Pigs lesson three months in, the Berlin Wall and 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, civil rights, the moon program, the Test Ban Treaty, Robert Kennedy at Justice, Jackie's White House restoration, and Dallas. In the morning we drive west to Hyde Park for the FDR Library.

#massachusetts#boston#john-f-kennedy
Read story
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
Read story
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
Read story
The Eisenhower family home on the grounds of the Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KansasUnited States
6 min read2013

Dateline June 29, 2013, The Eisenhower Library and Museum

Saturday afternoon at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, about three hours west of Kansas City. From the library wall: 'Dwight David Eisenhower was born the year the US census pronounced the frontier closed and died the year man walked on the moon. In between those milestones he planned and led the greatest amphibious military assault in history and waged eight years of peace and prosperity as President.' The Eisenhower story: West Point 1915, Fox Connor's mentorship in Panama, first in his class at the Command and General Staff School, the Philippines under MacArthur, Marshall's call to the War Department after Pearl Harbor, D-Day, VE-Day, NATO. Then eight years as President, two terms, two losses for Stevenson. Korea ended. The interstate highway system. The 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Three balanced budgets. Eight hundred rounds of golf, and a 'Truman and Eisenhower 2012' t-shirt in the gift shop that we both stopped to look at.

#kansas#abilene-kansas#dwight-eisenhower
Read story
The 'Buck Stops Here' sign from Harry Truman's desk, on display at the Truman LibraryUnited States
5 min read2013

Dateline June 28, 2013, The Truman Library

Our stop at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri was one of those pleasant, unexpectedly educational mornings. Most of us studied World History and US History in school, but unless we became serious students of the subject, the details of any one president's tenure tend to fade. Truman's tenure does not deserve to fade. The atomic bomb decision. The Truman Doctrine and the start of the Cold War. The Marshall Plan. The recognition of Israel eleven minutes after the declaration. The Berlin Airlift. NATO. Korea. The firing of MacArthur. The Buck Stops Here. And the small silver piano sent by a Holocaust survivor with her thanks. A wonderful museum, and a wonderful country.

#missouri#independence-missouri#harry-s-truman
Read story