Nixon, Reagan and the great scramble to see them both...

Here we sat, Effrin and I, trying to figure out how we got here and where to go next. The whirlwind of the day was disorienting and this roadblock on Madera Road served only to perplex us even more. We'd started our day at a disgustingly early hour and been on the move ever since, a move that had seen us travel from Nashville to Las Vegas and finally to Los Angeles. I'm sure that most people, upon landing in L.A., don't race immediately to the graves of the two West Coast Presidents, but Effrin and I aren't most people and the sole purpose of Effrin even being there was these grave visits and at this juncture the likelihood of seeing both was looking bleak. After I jokingly and completely randomly said that the road might be closed, we were amazed to find that it was in fact closed...even more amazing was the lack of any signs in order to show us a detour...so we were at a loss which only strengthened our resolve. We. Would. See. Reagan.

A brief rundown of how we ended up in this location with only an hour before closing time would go something like this: up at 4, flight at 6, a mad search for a pint glass, lunch well before 10, five hour energy, a very drunk soccer mom, a forty five minute delay, an overly long wait for an over crowded transfer to the rental car, literally pushing said crowd out of the way in a mad dash to pick up our rental car (a Nissan Sentra), I-105, I-91, Yorba Linda and....

The Nixon Presidential Library and Museum

 and...

The final resting places of Richard and Pat Nixon

...and September 11th Memorials, frozen Snickers, Gatorade and Diet Cokes, I-5, L.A. traffic and L.A. drivers, terrible Top 40 radio,and the roadblock on Madera Road, driving aimlessly to find a way around, driving back to talk to the cops working the road block about how to get around it, overly crowded parking lots snaking up to the Museum, Effrin yelling to take the 'lone' parking spot, endangering our lives and cutting people off to get into the spot only to see another twenty available just down the road, Simi Valley (one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever been), forty-five minutes to spare and....

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

and...

The final resting place of Ronald Reagan

Walking away from the Reagan site, a feeling of accomplishment came over me because in a year when I had planned to only see one Presidential site I was able to make it to a total of eight (A. Johnson, L. Johnson, Truman, Eisenhower, T. Roosevelt, Grant, Nixon and Reagan), four of which I saw with Effrin. In addition to my feeling of accomplishment, exhaustion washed over me making the drive back to the airport to return the car especially painful...but nothing that a nice Italian dinner and a bottle of wine didn't more than cure.