you guessed it, we made it to the gene autry and western heritage museum yesterday. we found an rv park in van nuys that was close to my son's house, but wouldn't you know it—no internet. this was the first rv park we have stayed in during our trip that did not have a wireless network. so today is catch-up day, i guess. anyway, the gene autry museum was spectacular and many items that were originally placed in the museum were western memorabilia that gene autry has collected. one of his great aspirations was to open a western heritage museum to display the culture of the american west. the museum is located in griffith park in los angeles next door to the los angeles zoo. it is very similar to the oklahoma city western heritage center we visited last week. one really neat thing about the western museum here in los angeles is that there is a 100-foot long mural downstairs that fills all three walls of the gallery (the fourth wall is the door openings and stairways). it took us about 5 hours to see the entire museum, and that was almost at a trot. i think that to see the entire museum and read all the placards and exhibits that it would take a minimum of 8 hours, and about 12 hours to really study the exhibits. the realy nice part of the day was that nancy and i were both able to enjoy the museum with our sons, rodney and chris. after leaving the gene autry museum we ventured out into the los angeles traffic on surface streets to head back to rodney's house and met his fiancee, inga. we spent several hours at their house in north hollywood, arriving back home (at the trailer) dog-tired and weary from having such a good time. this morning we slept in awhile before returning to rodney and inga's house for another day with family. tomorrow we take the show on the road again as we head for the san joaquin valley and fresno county. click on the "play" button (below) to see the mini-movie of the panorama mural. well, we're on the road again, i just can't wait to get on the road again...
