A Monumental Journey Across Washington, D.C.

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  Tony Arceo shouldn't have even been there that summer morning between my 7th and 8th grade years. A young robber stole a rifle at a pawn shop in neighboring Baldwin Park. The clerk managed to set off a silent alarm and Officer Arceo, from El Monte Police Department, gathered with the other officers outside, responding to a request for help from another police department.

The robber came out, guns blazing, hit Officer Arceo, who was immediately killed. Other officers returned fire, killing the suspect.

Officer Arceo was the first police officer killed in the line of duty in the department's history.

Today, there is a park named in his honor across the street from El Monte High School.

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We're here at the Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial in Washington, D.C., looking for Officer Arceo's name. It doesn't help matters that I first think his last name is "Arcero" and that I don't know that Tony was his middle name. He's listed under "Manuel" but we eventually find him in the locator book located at the end of the memorial where slips of paper and pencils are provided.

It takes us a few minutes to pick out his name from the thousands that are engraved here but we do find it and Letty takes a rubbing of it with the slip of paper.

Sitting directly over the Metro stop where we exited, this is our first stop on a day full of monument and museum touring here in the nation's capital.

We've been to DC before and it's been exhausting. There is so much to see and do here, you can go nonstop for a week without making much more than a dent on the surface. This time, we've set aside one day for monument and museum hopping, trying to see new things that we haven't seen before.

That means we'll try to avoid the stuff we've already seen...no Capitol Building, White House, Natural History Museum, Washington Monument, and more...but there will be a couple of revisits along the way.

A colleague at work suggests the Spy Museum is a must so we trundle up the street to see that.

It seems more like an amusement park attraction than a museum. A lot of stuff here is from the world of fantasy, especially from the works of Ian Fleming.  A lot of movie props from the 007 series are on display here. Cars from the movies, costumes, and other props.

There are some interesting real life spy items on display here like poison tipped umbrellas, invisible ink, tiny cameras, and listening devices.  I'm not sure is justifies the over $20 admission to get in, though. They also won't let us record video so it's on to other interesting DC sights.

A short walk away, we cross the Capitol Mall which is undergoing a massive renovation and is a giant construction zone. This displeases my wife but we continue on.

The next stop is the world's most popular museum, the National Air and Space Museum. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, this one is a rerun for us, too, but it's always a worthwhile stop.

Tim was only a little beyond being a toddler last time we were here so it's nice to show him such iconic craft as the Spirit of St. Louis and the Wright Brothers Flyer.

They're also building a new exhibit in the lobby where a barely acknowledged space capsule that carried Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in the Apollo 11 mission sits almost unnoticed in the corner.


Next up is another rerun, Ford's Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was shot.  It's different than two decades ago. The basement museum has been completely redone to the point that I can't find anything that used to be there. Not sure that's an improvement.

You also need a ticket to get in, now. These are free and available at the counter. I don't know what good they do since we were there at the height of the tourist season and after getting them were told to go right in.

You can see the blood-stained pillow that the president laid his head on as he breathed his last, though (see below).

The theater itself hasn't changed much, if at all, in the intervening years since our last visit. It's still a somber place to think of the history-changing pull of a trigger that happened up in that flag draped box.  Wheelchairs can't get past the last row in the auditorium but can still see the box from there.

Across the street sits the Petersen House where the mortally wounded president was taken to. You'll be glad to know that three years ago an elevator was installed allowed wheelchairs access to all areas of this part of the site.

First, we take in the room where officials drafted a letter to Andrew Johnson, preparing him to take the oath of office. Even if the president had somehow managed to survive, the damage to his brain would have been so extensive as to render him unable to continue in office.

Across the hall is the room where Mr. Lincoln expired.  We're told the bed is not the same one but the bedding and pillows are original.

The Metro takes us over to George Washington University where we plan to walk along the river back to the Lincoln Monument. There's another, extremely historic, site here that sits unmarked and unnoticed by most. It's massive, though.

Several large, curving apartment and office buildings sit on this parcel next to the Lincoln Center.  The name, Watergate, gave us a suffix that forever means corruption and cover-ups.

A small breakin here led to the larger cover-up of the crimes of people in the Nixon administration.  It would lead to that president's downfall and resignation, triggering one of the biggest crisis in our nation's history.

From the back of the property, it's a long hot walk along the river to the end of the Mall where the Lincoln Monument sits.  Hordes of tourists clamber over the marble steps of this tribute to our 16th president.

Elevators take us up to the statue hall but the best part is escaping the crowds by going back out and to the back porch of the building.

Pushing on, we come across the city's newest monument, this one in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It's supposed to be a chunk removed from a mountain (a 'mountain of despair') with Dr. King's image in relief on the front of it.

Some people here are saying it's not a good likeness. It commands a great view over the tidal basing, looking across to the Jefferson Memorial.

It's striking and a ranger is on hand to provide more background information on Dr. King and his life but I think we learned more about the man and his struggle at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.  Of course, we had much more time there to soak it in.

The visitor's center, gift shop, and bathrooms here are also a great place to relax, charge your batteries, and get ready for the next part of our exploration.

Around the edge of the basin, on a sometimes treacherous path for the wheelchair, we come around to the massive Frankin Delano Roosevelt memorial that seems to stretch on forever.

Waterfalls commemorate the TVA, bas reliefs the depression, and the large statue of FDR...not in a wheelchair, by the way...are some of the highlights here.

At last, we come upon the Thomas Jefferson Memorial where a statue of the man looks longingly towards the White House.  We're spent so it's nice that this memorial lacks the crowds of the more popular Lincoln Memorial.

We read some of his writings engraved on the walls before calling it a day.  The DC Circulator bus picks us up out front and takes us to Union Station.

Dinner is here, expensive but not that memorable, then it's back on the Metro to chill and relax after this very long day of exploring this city.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Ishtar and the Topography of Terror: Berlin, Germany

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) We're on the Cold War and Nazi trail here in Berlin. Earlier today, we visited the seat of the country's government at the Reichstag, visited for formerly forbidden Brandenberg Gate, and remembered the innocents slaughtered at the Holocaust Memorial.

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A few blocks away from Checkpoint Charlie's tourist horde, we find a more manageable leftover piece of the Berlin Wall.  About 200 yards of the barrier have been preserved as an open-air museum called the Topography of Terror.

An accessible path takes you along this section of wall, separating what was the bombed out ruins of the Third Reich's administrative buildings and the apartment buildings across the street in what used to be East Berlin. There is a chunk missing, where the first section of the hated wall was broken through giving access to the west for the Berliners of the east.

Many more holes are punched through the wall, exposing the rebar in the concrete, giving evidence of the citizens of the city rushing to tear down the wall with hammers, picks, and crowbars.

Ramps lead to a section below with many photos exhibits of the Nazi era events and locations that took place in this mostly vacant field.

The history here is enveloping and, since it's completely free, devoid of the tourist trap atmosphere that pervades the Checkpoint Charlie area on Friedrichstrasse.

It's time to break for lunch so we find a very nice Italian place, Ristorante Marinelli, across from the Anhalter Station.

There is still a façade standing at this old train station, the only thing left standing after World War II bombing raids. The only trains now are the S-Bahn trains running in the station underground.

During the war, Jews were rounded up and brought here to board trains to their awful fates in the concentration camps. This façade, and a few interpretive displays, were left as a memorial.

Below, we board a train heading for the eastern side of the city where we'll visit Museum Island to end our day.

It's a short walk from the Hackescher Markt station then a walk on a bridge across the River Spree, hard by the Berliner Dom cathedral, to reach Museum Island. Here, five state museums form a UNESCO Heritage Site where visitors can see some of the great treasures of this city.

Some parts still show war damage from seventy years ago.

Our destination is the Pergamon  Museum, which features very large, reconstructed buildings from the ancient age. It's star attraction, the Pergamon Altar, is closed for renovation for a couple of years but we are able to see it's other great restorations.

The deep blue tiles of the Ishtar Gate, recovered from Iraq and brought to Berlin to be rebuilt, brick-by-brick, used to guard an entrance to Babylon. Three thousand years have not dulled the brilliant colors.

This was a "small" gate into the old city but we are dwarfed by its massive dimensions.

Dragons, lions, and other beasts are depicted on it's walls. The hall leading up to it is a reconstructed street that led up to the gate.

A model shows just how puny this reconstructed section is when compared to the entire gate complex.

Behind the gate, a Roman temple has also been brought to Germany and rebuilt in this massive hall.

Columns, mosaic floors, and busts of leaders who thought themselves gods adorn the walls.

I'm a bit blown away by the large temple but even more so when I turn around and notice the other half is behind me.

Our long day of Berlin touring, hitting all the major stops on our Cold War and World War II lists, has come to and end. We make our way back to the S-Bahn and on to Potsdamerstrasse to have another delicious Turkish dinner at Café Neffes near our hotel.

We'll rest up, drinking some great German Riesling while watching corny German language gameshows and continue on tomorrow.


Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

Kern County and Bakersfield, California

“Y’all must be crazy”

Yep, that’s what a lot of you are going be saying when you see where were going. The truth is, we’ve been to over a dozen countries and most of the states, but when we finally left the freeway and started exploring, Bakersfield turned out to be one of the most fun and interesting places we’ve been.

OK, so if I haven’t lost you by now, please read on while I plead my case…

Watch the Video of this trip!

For a couple of years after 9/11, the travel industry was on the ropes. You could get airfares and hotels for a song. Eventually, the economy turned somewhat and many in the industry tried to recoup the losses…tried very, very hard in some cases.

In the most intense period of Tim’s college days, we had very little time to spare during the school year and even less money to do it with (college tuition is a back-breaker!). We had a weekend between semesters where we could get away. Unfortunately, most of the usual suspects were charging usurious rates for basic rooms…over $300 a night in Pismo Beach at the same hotel we’d previously stayed at for $69 the year before.

I’m a music fan, and I also like good country and western music. I’d always wanted to see Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace but just never got around to Bakersfield to see it while he was alive but I’d found a great deal on a two-room suite there so we planned an overnighter. We had a ton of fun watching Buck’s son Buddy lead the Buckaroos while we dined on some fabulous steak. While we were there, we started to see the city in an ever more favorable light and went back again when we had some more time.

It finally happened. Instead of seeing it as a hot and dusty pit stop on Highway 99 on the way to somewhere more exotic, we fell in love with Bakersfield. Give it a try and you might just start looking at it with new eyes too…

It’s an easy two-hour drive over the Grapevine to Bakersfield when the weather is nice. When it’s not, this can be the drive from Hell. It’s the week after Easter, so along the way we stop in Gorman to view one of nature’s most majestic displays; a mountain covered in brilliantly colored wildflowers. About a half-hour east of here in Antelope Valley is another…miles and miles of fields covered in California Poppies. There is an official state reserve here, along with a much larger area of unofficial blooms.

After taking a little time to literally stop and smell the flowers, we continue on to the down side of the pass into the Central Valley. Thirty minutes later, we make our first stop in Bakersfield, a margarita in the dark and cozy bar of Mexicali on 18th Street.

The friendly bartenders here make one of the best margaritas in the city using Mountain Dew  (actually, it's ReaLemon as I just recently found out - Ed) as the sour mix. They also have a wide variety of margaritas to try but we’ll have to come back sometime when we don’t have to drive.

Just a couple of blocks away is the Holy Grail of tacodom, Los Tacos de Huicho. It’s a good place to walk to and eat off the margarita.

Huicho’s has nothing bad on the menu. Their specialty is al pastor, a pile of marinated pork rotating on a spit with onion and pineapple juices blending with the meat’s own juice as it is slowly cooked to perfection. I have eaten this meat everywhere from Guadalajara to Santa Rosa…no one comes close to the delectable perfection of Huicho’s. It’s also one of the world’s best bargains at only 99 cents (now $1.09 - ed) per taco.

There is also an excellent carne asada, cabeza, tripas (cow milk gut), fish, and shrimp. Besides the tacos, you can get your meat served in burritos, mulas, huaraches, gringas, and sopes. The tacos come plain…just the meat and tortilla. You then take them to the condiment bar and load them up. I like to sprinkle on the onions and cilantro, followed by the spicy red or green salsa, topped off with their creamy and spicy guacamole salsa. That last one is extremely rare north of the border but is pretty common in Tijuana. It’s just heaven.

Tim also wants to tell you that they make some of the best fries he’s ever had too. The only down side is their bar. It’s pretty much a fast food type of place, but they have a full bar in the back that makes some really uninspired mixed drinks. The beer’s good, though. Huicho’s is located just east of the intersection of Union Avenue and 18th Street.

After less than twenty dollars, all three of us are stuffed. It’s time to find our hotel.

There are several good choices here, most reasonable to cheap. The Best Western (now a Red Lion hotel - ed) next to the Crystal Palace is good if you’re going there. It has nice rooms, a friendly staff, and…being right next door to the Palace…is drinker friendly. I saw a two couples by the pool there once preloading with around 30 bottles of booze before they walked over. Hey, whatever floats your boat…as long as you’re walking and not disturbing me (they behaved, actually they were very nice people).

If you do find yourself drinking to excess there, all you need to do is walk across the parking lot to your room. The full breakfast in the on-site coffee shop that’s included in your room rate will help heal that hangover.

Two blocks away on the other side of the freeway is our current favorite, Springhill Suites. Located in a hotel ghetto between Rosedale Highway and the Kern River, it’s a quiet location and all suites. The staff has come to know us and puts us in the same accessible room on the second floor, overlooking the pool and the river beyond. It’s not as nice a view as it sounds…an oil-rig supply company sits between the hotel and the river.

The room is very nice and spacious. It includes a wet bar with microwave, coffee maker and refrigerator. A large bathroom with a transfer seat in the tub. There are also suites with roll-in showers but they are on the first floor and my wife prefers to be upstairs. A hot breakfast is served each morning off of the lobby. Above all, it is quiet, even when the hotel is full of kids’ sports teams. Rooms here go for over $100 but many discounts are available and I always pay around $80 per night…check their website for current offers.

After unpacking and a little rest, we head over to the Crystal Palace. We have 6:00pm reservations for dinner and a show. Along with the dinner, there is a $5 cover charge for the show. A wonderful steak dinner here will set you back $31. It’s a huge amount of food; 20 oz. steak, salad, squaw bread, biscuits, green beans, and your choice of a side. Plenty big enough for two, the split plate charge is just $8. There’s also sandwiches and pizzas from $9 to $12. A soup and dinner-size salad menu runs from $5 to $13. A full bar is also available. Dinner for three, including a couple of drinks for each of us and the show, comes in around $70 plus tip.

The main band is the Buckaroos, Buck’s old backup band. Every other weekend, Buck’s son Buddy Alan Owens flies in from Phoenix to play with his father’s band. Although he’s Buck’s son, Buddy was mostly raised by his step-father, Merle Haggard (another Bakersfield star), who married his mom after her original marriage broke up. It’s a rockin’ good time as the band plays not only Buck Owens material, but Merle’s too…while Buddy provides some personal back stories to go along with them and folks crowd the dance floor down front. He also mixes in quite a bit of classic rock into the mix.

Buck Owens is legend in this town, so the Palace also doubles as his museum. Hundreds of artifacts from his career sit in display cases lining the joint but the place of honor goes to his Buckmobile, a custom 1972 Pontiac with rifles on the hood and silver dollars mounted on the dash that is permanently mounted over the bar. Buck won the car in a poker game from Nudie, the guy who made all the glittering suits Owens wore during his career.

After the Buckaroos finish, Steve Davis and Stampede take over as the house band. They’re also very good but after two or three songs, it’s late for us and we head back to the hotel. If you only have one night here, an evening at the Palace gives you a good, very fun, distilled version of what this city is all about. It’s family-friendly too, so don’t be afraid to take the kids.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

nickchapman under CC-BY license

In front of the Crystal Palace is the iconic Bakersfield sign that used to welcome travelers into town, stretched over Union Avenue in downtown. It was in bad shape and slated to be demolished when the town’s adopted musical hero, Buck Owens, stepped in to save it. It is now completely restored and crosses Stillwell Avenue next to the steakhouse and night club that Buck built.

Up the river a ways stands more signs. At the Kern County Museum, an effort is being waged to save the iconic neon signs that were a part of this city. You can see some them in the back of the museum grounds, such as the sign that pointed out the annex of the Bakersfield inn…one of the anchor points of the sign Buck Owens saved. Others are awaiting their restoration, like the TEJON letters of the old Tejon Theater marquee. More signs never got the chance…few more iconic signs existed like the block-long Rancho Bakersfield motel sign, long since demolished when the motel became a rehab center (which has since met its own fate on Golden State Avenue).

Along with the signs, acres of old, restored buildings dot the grounds like an old town. A jail, an undertakers office, many houses, an old hotel, a gas station. You could…and probably will…spend many hours exploring them.

Of course, Bakersfield is a huge oil town providing 64% of the oil produced in California. A visit here needs to include the Black Gold exhibit explaining the history and process of the local oil business. A theme-park quality motion simulator ride takes you beneath the ocean floor to find oil deposits. You can operate an antique derrick. Inside, exhibits show how oil does not sit in huge pools under the earth. Rather, it must be pressed out of the rock. No matter how you feel about the oil industry, this thorough look at it is fascinating.
Out front, another rescued icon, the Beale clock tower stands guard.

After the museum, we head north on Chester Avenue to our next stop. Over the Kern River in Oildale is Bakersfield Speedway, a 1/3 mile dirt oval nestled on the edge of town. We get here before 5:30pm and are able to take advantage of their happy hour, $1 dollar Bud and Bud Lite beer. OK, it’s not my favorite…in fact, it’s kind of like drinking water…but for a dollar, it’ll do.

We find a spot in the wheelchair accessible front row at turn four and watch the cars take practice laps. When the powerful, open-wheel modified cars come out, a shower of mud chips hits us every time they come around the corner. It’s time to rethink this and we move up to the top row, which is also accessible by a ramp that is a little steeper than we’d like.

The view and the comfort are much better from up here. A note: the seating here is nothing but concrete benches. Fans bring their own lawn chairs to sit in.

Racing gets started at 6:00 with heat races, starting with the mini-dwarf cars. These are tiny, lawn mower powered jalopy replicas driven by kids as young as 5 years old. They are very competitive and a lot of fun to watch. Next are the hobby stocks, local garage built cars, then the modifieds and finally the super late models, which are the fastest and loudest cars they’ll be racing tonight.

The top two cars from each heat race gets to compete in the next event, the trophy dash. Six cars from each division compete in short races to get a nice trophy and a picture with the trophy queen. The main events start right after the trophy dashes, with long races for the right to be the night’s champion and to claim the prize purse, usually several hundred dollars. The final race we see tonight features a last lap, neck-and-neck battle to the checkered flag. It’s thrilling and a lot of fun.

There's a lot more to come, be sure to come back for Part 2 of our road trip to Bakersfield where it's baseball, wildlife, fine ethnic cuisine, and a look at the nightlife of the city.

Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick

The Folsom Blues

Due to events beyond our control, our Memorial Day weekend in Lodi has become a weekend in Sacramento instead. Finally getting some quality sleep on the comfortable beds in the real suites of the Hyatt House hotel just east of the capitol in Rancho Cordova, we head downstairs to the bountiful breakfast buffet offered here.

It’s a nice hotel. The suite is big, spacious, comfortable and accessible (note: we opt for the bathtub equipped room but roll-ins are available). The beds are truly sleep inducing and, incredibly, it’s very quiet.

Incredibly, because the hotel is full of 8 to 14 year olds in town for a Little League tournament. Those hungry boys and girls do their best to decimate the hotel’s breakfast serving ability but we’re able to get a very decent breakfast before heading out.

Watch the Video!

The pool and spa have lifts for those who need them but we didn’t try to…after a night of heavy use by the kids, the spa is a deep green and surrounded by yellow tape. The pool looks better but the water’s cold and it’s still full of the kids who turned the spa green.  Better safe than sorry…

Our plans are scrambled so we look around for a new plan. Just up the road is Folsom.  Could it be?

Not well advertised but finally finding it is infamous Folsom Prison. Just inside the outer gate is the prison’s museum.

We park at the visitor’s reception center. Since we’re not going into the prison proper, there’s no need for us to go through the metal detector and be searched.

I notice a limping deer behind our car. I follow him to the gate where a prisoner-trustee mans the booth. He feeds the deer and tells us it’s part of a family that comes down from the surrounding hills for a free handout.

In the small museum, the exhibits run from the gruesome...a well-used hangman’s noose and a collection of shanks…to the kitschy…we documented pictures, CDs, and even dolls dedicated to the two concerts performed here by Johnny Cash.

A replica cell is located in the back and the volunteer on duty points out to a visitor, “you know my uncle Chuck that works here? He was stabbed in the neck one time by an inmate. That’s the knife up there,” she points out on the wall of prisoner-made shanks on the wall.

The docents also point out the best spot where we can legally take pictures of the prison’s imposing stone walls, gates, and tower. Another engages me in a long conversation about earlier prison industries and entertainments…most of which are long gone. The only industry left is the metal shop that makes all of California’s license plates.

Out of prison, we continue back up the road to Amador County and follow the maze of backroads until we get to Story Winery.

Sitting on a hillside at the top of Consumnes River Canyon, the winery is having special tastings and live music for Memorial Day weekend. We’d stopped at Andrae’s Bakery in Amador City on the way up to pick up some bread and cheese for a picnic.

The band, 30 Years After, is playing a selection of Credence Clearwater Revival, Beatles, Eagles, and other 60s and 70s music. Someone in the crowd heckled up that maybe they should be called 40 Years After.

It’s very relaxing sitting on the deck, enjoying our picnic with the winery’s outstanding zinfandel.

Down the hill, it’s back to Lodi for Saturday night in downtown where I find this perfect Austin Healey.

A stroll around the area, doing a little window shopping, before ending this evening with another dinner at Lodi Beer Company, having some samplers and comparing notes with the table next to us.

Tomorrow, we’ll conclude this trip by doing some historical touring before heading down into the capital for some candy. We’ll see you then.

Darryl

Copyright 2013 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

A Day Out: The Commemorative Air Force Museum - Camarillo, California

For years, I'd drive through this Ventura County town on my way to Santa Barbara or on my way back from San Luis Obisbo, and see a stunning Lockheed Constellation parked at the south end of Camarillo's airport from the freeway.

I vowed to take a closer look but never did. Eventually, the Connie went away but I still made it a mission to someday see the air museum here.

That day has come as I've vowed to get the family out of the house more often and do more of these day-long adventures.

Camarillo sits just over the hill from the mega-sprawl of Los Angeles. A sometimes hair-raising descent over the Canejo Grade from Thousand oaks deposits you here. This city, Oxnard, and Ventura are making their own little sprawl but miles of farmland still surround the trio of cities.

It's also become home to refugees of the giant congested city to the south with thousands of residents commuting daily via their cars, Metrolink's railroad, or buses to their jobs in L.A. The telltale sign is the congested traffic coming down the grade this morning.

We crawl our way across town on the 101, making our way over to the airport. It's a former Air Force base so old, military style buildings dot the grounds. A couple of schools and the Sheriff's facility have moved into some, airport support services occupy the others.

A bright yellow Huey helicopter, with the signature 'whoop whoop' of the rotors eases it's way down to it's pad at the Sheriff's Search and Rescue facility while we look for the museum.  It's just past the deputies' landing pad.

The docent manning the front counter lets us know that half of the planes are missing today because they are appearing at an air show in El Centro. To compensate, he only charges us half price (usual donation is $10 to get in, today it's $5).

Before setting out onto the tarmac, we browse the interior with displays of weapons, bomb sights, uniforms, and even this piece of the 'Enola Gay,' autographed by the crew.

A couple of planes are inside the hangar with us, a trainer covered with a tarp and this P-51 Mustang that was getting a new engine installed.

We head outside and start looking at some of the craft when a docent comes up and asks us "where's George?"

I let him know that I don't know, and don't even know who George is. He tells us that we must be escorted at all times on the tarmac. No one told us but he goes off to get George, another docent.

Once George shows up, with a couple of German tourists in tow, we get a tour of the tarmac. There's a C-47 (the military version of the DC-3) that saw service in WW2 and as a gunship in Vietnam and a Huey that was also a gunship in Vietnam (pic at the top of this post).

The 'China Doll', a C-46 transport that was built right at the end of the war so it saw no military service but planes of this type flew resupply missions over the Himalayas.

In a hangar next door, George shows us a B-25 undergoing restoration by another group unaffiliated with the museum.

With several planes in the collection gone...including one of the few remaining true Japanese Zeros left in the world...it's a fairly short visit.  We're on our way but not before I snap a picture of this docent-owned classic Chevy Bel Air (by the way, the docent told me the Lockheed Connie that used to be there is now at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino).

Once outside the gates of the airport, we're back in the middle of prime Ventura County strawberry country. Some of the best strawberries in the world come from this region.

A small farm stand sits in a field across from the airport gate, we'll pick up some berries here. They were delicious and most didn't make it all the way home.

We also picked up a bag of local oranges.

Over the hill in Thousand Oaks, we go to the local mall to have dinner at Stacked.  This is a new chain, about half a dozen locations at the moment, started by Paul Motenko and Jerry Hennessy.

We're big fans of this pair, going way back to their days of buying up another small local chain, BJ's, which they turned into a nationwide powerhouse.

Paul and Jerry were bought out and forced out of their positions at BJs and, as soon as their no-compete clause expired, they were back at it again with Stacked.

You can order via an iPad at your table...or you can order via a server the old fashioned way...and customize your food to your preference, the price changing on the iPad to reflect additions or subtractions to your entree.

Tim and I had bacon cheeseburgers...mine with onion straws, his without...and Letty opted for the more healthy choice of this salad.

One more stop in Simi Valley for a trip to Costco for groceries and gas where we spotted this beauty...a bright yellow 57 Chevy to go with the red and white version we saw at the airport.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved