The 37th President

Who was the 37th President of the United States? 

Richard Milhous Nixon

What comes to mind when his name is mentioned?

Watergate.

Tricky Dick. 

"I am not a crook"...

When Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, I hadn't started grade school yet. I do remember hearing about "Watergate" on TV and, at the time, thinking that someone must have opened a dam and caused a flood. Even though I was too young to grasp the details correctly, I could definitely comprehend that this person was in BIG TROUBLE...

Farewell to Manzanar

Today marked our third visit to Manzanar National Historic Site. The first time we came to Manzanar was in April 2008, during the annual pilgrimage of former incarcerees.

2008

Framily Plan

The best way to spend the Fourth of July is with family and friends! Our first stop was to drop in at a friend's house for the barbecue they were hosting. Several of our dear friends were there!

Sadness and Joy

Devoted son.

Loving brother (and brother-in-law).

Awesome uncle.

Fun cousin.

Respected colleague.

Trusted friend.

Faithful servant.

K, we miss you so much! But we take joy knowing that you are home with our Lord and will see you again.

Coasterholics

Any summer trip to Chicagoland would not be complete without a trek to Six Flags Great America. We're definitely putting our season passes to good use! Today we picked up two more adrenaline junkies. M and J had a great time hanging out with their cousins K and D, one from each side of R's extended family!

Hoosiers

Having lived here in California for 15 years, we're used to driving long distances to get anywhere: 4.5 hours to Las Vegas, 5.5 hours to San Francisco or Sacramento, and 6 hours to Phoenix. And that's on a good day with no traffic, of course! 

So whenever we come back to visit our families, I'm always looking at a map and figuring out where else we can go for a side trip. And in the Midwest, multiple states are within 4-6 hours! Woohoo! Today our Las Vegas-equivalent drive would take us from Louisville to Indianapolis, and finally to Chicago. First stop - the Indiana Statehouse!

Bats and Horses

Put me in, Coach!

From Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHP, we headed north to Louisville. Our next stop was the Louisville Slugger Museum. Many years ago, before basketball was king, the boys played a few seasons of Little League. And at the time, Uncle K talked about us all going to Louisville to check out the factory. So, it was especially fitting for us to visit now.

My Old Kentucky Home

First thing this morning we checked out of our room at the Mammoth Cave Hotel and hit a drive-thru in Cave City for breakfast since we were going to lose an hour traveling to Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHP. 

Going Underground

When I was planning out our travel itinerary, I asked M to research the cave tours at Mammoth Cave National Park and pick out the ones that looked interesting. In no time at all, he handed me the names of the tours that he wanted to do. Now, it's really not that hard to come up with a short list when your sole criterion is the word "strenuous" in the description of difficulty! Thanks for taking your not-as-young-as-we-used-to-be parents into consideration, son!

Waiting for the Grand Avenue Tour to start

Two of the tours he picked weren't feasible because we don't have ankle-high hiking boots. Either one would have been fun to do since both involved real spelunking - climbing, crawling, etc. Instead, I bought advance tickets online for the other two on his list... the "very strenuous" Grand Avenue Tour in the morning and the plain ol' "strenuous" Violet City Lantern Tour in the afternoon.

Time Travelers

First thing this morning, we said goodbye to my folks and headed for parts unknown... to us, at least! Any place south and east of Champaign-Urbana is unexplored territory!

What a difference a year makes!

Mounds and Memorials

Boys: What are we doing today?

Me: First stop is a few minutes away, just on the other side of the Mississippi River... Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. It's a World Heritage Site, too!

Boys: Mounds?! *groan* 

Such negativity! I assured them that this place was much more interesting than our first encounter with mound builders at Effigy Mounds National Monument in 2011 (read that blog post here). That episode is not-so-fondly remembered as our worst national park visit EVER. We hiked uphill in hot, humid weather and battled blood-sucking mosquitoes to see grass-covered bumps which didn't look like much of anything from ground level.  

OK, so maybe their groaning this morning was justified...

Meet Me in St. Louis

About a week before we came back to Illinois, my parents received news that one of their dear friends had passed away. They wanted to attend the memorial service on June 27 in Columbia, MO – but didn’t want to cut our visit with them short. Knowing how close they were to their friend and his family, we totally understood. Since we were planning a day trip down to Springfield anyway and the Cubs just so happened to be playing the Cardinals in St. Louis, it was easy to find a way to entertain ourselves while my mom and dad were out of town. And thanks to a couple of great guys from my hometown, we were able to get tickets to the game tonight!

It started to rain as we were driving to Springfield. Actually, torrential downpour is more accurate – the scary kind where your windshield wipers cannot go fast enough, and semi-trucks are kicking up more water on top of that. If only there were a way to import some of that rain to California!

Home Cookin'

It's been a while since I last posted here on the blog. We did have plans for another Saiki-delic road trip through Arizona, West Texas, and southern New Mexico over spring break. The first stop was going to be watching the Cubs play a couple of spring training games with R's brother K, but four days before we were supposed to meet him in Phoenix, we got a late night phone call that he had suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital.

Pinnacles Redux

After our tour of Port Chicago yesterday, we headed down to San Jose to check into our hotel room, and then spent the evening visiting one of R's college roommates and his family (read about the last time we bumped into them here). Fun time for the basketball junkies watching the All-Star Saturday Night festivities and playing board games with the girls! And the grown-ups had a great time catching up! We also enjoyed going to their church for worship service this morning and watching the first half of the Illinois game. Why only the first half? Well, they were playing (not very well) against Wisconsin, and besides we had another stop to make on our 6-hour drive home.  

Third Time's the Charm

Currently there are 405 units in the National Park Service. As of today we have visited 111 of them together as family! We checked off our latest one with a tour of Port Chicago Naval Magazine N MEM. 

Port Chicago is one of the more challenging units to visit because it is located within MOTCO (Military Ocean Terminal Concord). When there are active operations at the base, no tours are available to the public for weeks or months at a time. And when it is open, reservations must be made at least two weeks in advance so that the military can conduct background clearance checks. The last two times that we have been in the vicinity, Port Chicago was closed. Needless to say, I was really happy that the timing was finally right for us to visit!

Long Day's Journey into Night

WHAT?!?!?!  

No school on Friday or Monday for President's Day weekend?!

No basketball games scheduled for either of the boys?!  

AND... Port Chicago is now taking reservations for tours since the military base is not conducting any operations for the time being?! (More on that in the next post)

Yippee!  Road trip!  Road Trip!  R-O-A-D  T-R-I-P!