Tuesday, December 3, 2013, California Science Center and Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles, CA

A trip to the new California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA, was the order for the day. We thought to start at 9:00 should avoid the worst of the traffic since everyone would already be at work by then. I'm sure it was better, but then can it ever really be considered good? The 34-mile trip took more than an hour (we actually felt pretty good about that).

Seeing the Space Shuttle Endeavour was certainly the high point of the museum visit, but there was a lot of other pretty cool stuff as well.

 Massimino never mentioned Howard (fruitloops) Wolowitz when talking about the zero-gravity human-waste disposal system.

David was in Florida to see this mission blast off in November 2001, but it was scrubbed for a week and he missed it.

$1,980,674,785.00 to build it?

We watched a video about the ordeal to bring the Endeavour to the California Science Center.

A wing barely clearing its way through the city.

Within easy walking distance of the Science Museum was the California Museum of Natural History with a Rose Garden in between. I guess their roses must bloom year 'round. The Natural History Museum was a pleasant surprise - one of the nicest we have visited.

 This is Thomas the T-Rex.

 I was blown away by the rock and mineral collection.  It was HUGE and so well curated.

 This case represents, at most, a fourth of the total collection.

On the way back to the coach we found one of our favorite restaurants from more than 30 years ago. It was the Mariposa where we had their "Fractured Tostada" and a Margarita at least once a month. The restaurant had moved to a different location, but their menu still included the fractured tostada and, of course, margaritas.

Sometimes things are not as good as you remember, but the food and Margarita at the Mariposa were better than I remembered!!

A few blocks away was an Ikea where we could walk a few of those calories off before turning in. The perfect way to end a great day!

Monday, December 2, 2013, East Shore RV Park in San Dimas, Tour of Claremont, CA

We were not in a hurry, so we started our morning with Monster Biscuits at Carl's Jr.  The coach started beautifully. I don't think I will ever take that for granted again (or at least not for a long time). Heading south on I-5 in the morning was nearly ideal. The traffic was gone. We pulled into the East Shore RV Park in San Dimas, CA after a leisurely 170.5 miles (5,951.1 trip/65,432.2 total). San Dimas is adjacent to Claremont (where we lived when we first moved to California 35 years ago) and we looked forward to exploring our old haunts.

The drive was pleasantly uneventful with some nice views crossing the Tejon Pass.

We were surprised to see Mt. Baldy (officially, Mt. San Antonio) - it was usually obscured by smog most of the year when we lived here.

Mt. Baldy still had a little snow.

Daytime view from our coach.  You could see the Puddingstone Reservoir below.

Our first residence out of college in Claremont, CA.  This was pure luxury! Two bedrooms, a garage close by and a pool!!!  I could walk 1 mile to work.  I loved this apartment!

The bushes on the right-hand side lined our back patio. As you can see the train tracks were but 30-40 feet away. The windows rattled every time a train passed.

  

I used to work in this building (corner of W Foothill Blvd. and N Indian Hill Blvd), but it was a savings and loan instead of a bank. 

It still had the embedded mosaic tile on the side - Pomona First Federal Savings and Loan!

Our first house, 1120 Bermuda Dunes St, Ontario, CA.

Looks like new garage doors.

All the brick and concrete work we did is still there, but the landscaping is different. My Jade Tree, Tasmanian Tree Fern, Babies Tears and Jacaranda Tree are all gone. Maybe 34 years is beyond their lifespan. 

This was the view at dusk from our motorhome!  What a nice campground (East Shore RV Resort).

This 30 ft. tall tree was next to the office.  They must have used a cherry picker!!

A walk around the campground at night afforded some nice views.

That will get you in the spirit!!

We had an exceptionally full day and thoroughly enjoyed our driving around the area to see what had changed and what was still the same.

Sunday, December 1, 2013, Move to Pilot Travel Center, Lost Hills, CA

It was time to start south to try to keep ahead of the cold. Joani planned on breaking up the trip to the L.A. area by staying overnight at a Pilot Truck Stop. As it turned out, it could not have worked out better. The Pilot at the highway 46 intersection with I-5 turned out to be only 207.3 miles (5,780.6 trip/65,261.7 total), but some of those were hard fought miles and the stop was more than welcome.

San Luis Reservoir was obviously way below capacity.

My heart goes out to the valley farmers.  Water determines their livelihood and they are being starved.

How cool!  Makes me want to shop at a Save Mart!

It never occurred to us that we picked the Sunday after Thanksgiving for our moving day.

We were on our way to overnight at a Pilot Truck Stop, so what's the hurry?

We had some nice scenery as we crawled down I-5.

The Pilot was huge and surprisingly uncrowded. We fueled the coach and parked for the night. We walked across the street for a burger and, on the way back, we noticed a continuous line of lights far off into the distance. Then it hit us, the lights were cars on the Interstate and, at 9:00 in the evening, they were barely moving.

There was another coach next to us when we got back to our coach and, because they were parked in the opposite direction, we could both safely extend our bedroom slides (without fear of a truck clipping them in the night). The guy next to us had traveled from the south and made it 160 miles in 7 hours, while we had covered our 207 miles in 5 and a half hours (see, it can always be worse!)