AAR: PICTURES FROM REAGAN LIBRARY 6/7/04

Bob J's camera | 6/8/04 | Diotima

[diotima]

Reagan Library Pictures 6/7/2004

Freepers (L to R) Dio, Doug from Upland, DoughtyToo, DoughtyOne, NerdGirl, sordo

[the Deejay]

"Rush Limbaugh just said that the waiting lines are up to 10 hours."

That's up from the report of last night. It was 7 - 8 hours.

It was estimated on Sunday, they expected 18,000 and I knew it'd be much higher. Last night they said 50,000 had been to the viewing.

[New Perspective]

[nutmeg]

INCREDIBLE. Thanks so much for posting these amazing photos. I sure wish I could be there or in DC tomorrow...

[the Deejay]

Hours extended until 10 tonight Pacific time.

I heard that Nancy is "overwhelmed" by the amount of people going to the viewing.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[Steven W.]

Good to see you folks, ever so quickly, yesterday! And thanks for the cookies! PS - my / our wait was 6 hours in line and we made it to the display for the 12:00 AM changing of the guard. Reportedly Tom Selleck was in line some ways behind us. When we left all the freeways, highways and roads leading to the college were reminiscent of "Field of Dreams" as I quickly posted when I returned home around 4:30 this morning.

[TonyInOhio]

Hurrah for our CA FReepers! Thanks for representing us flatlanders.

FReegards,

Tony

[capydick]

This Freeper will be there adding to the numbers @ approximately 10:00 am Thursday morning.

[MinuteGal]

Millions of the silent majority feel helpless in the face of the big (commie) red media machine.

With this public and open viewing, even the mortals who feel most powerless can display their conservative feelings smack dab in the media's faces.

Come November, this silent majority will be out again, exercising the thing the leftists fear the most.....people power!

They are there.....and they will come.

Leni

[Yaelle]

This is my report from the trenches last night.

I am absolutely blown away by the showing for President Reagan.

Because I have two small children that needed to get to bed (a baby and a 7-year-old who had his school picnic today so couldn't take off school), I could only leave after their bedtime and leave Daddy in charge. My 12-year-old son accompanied me. We set off on our hour's drive toward Moorpark at 10 p.m.

We got stuck behind an accident on the 405 near the airport so we didn't get up to the 23 at the Collins exit until about 11:30. We took the 23 instead of the more common 118 from L.A. because of a FReeper's tip. They say you shave off an hour of wait that way. There was a temporary freeway sign posted that the wait ahead would be 3 hours. Then we saw it: the other 2 lanes of the freeway were empty, but there was nothing but a sea of red taillights as far as the eye could see in the right lane.

Just up ahead was an exit and some people were going off there. I decided to follow them. I had no idea where we were in relation to the college so I was relying on the cars in front of me. Well, after a few turns where they all went the same way, they basically petered out in all directions and I didn't know what to do. Sam was asking me to please make a U-turn. We had traveled what I thought was far from the freeway at that point and the road seemed a little desolate.

Then suddenly we came to a freeway onramp for the 118. We had a choice of E or W, but I had no earthly idea which way Moorpark College was from there. I crept up and peeked up the E and there was a long line of cars on the freeway. Obviously that was the right way. We went up and got into line. Behind us were probably 2 or more miles of cars, single file. We had accidentally taken a HUGE "legal" short cut!

We congratulated ourselves for a while. On the radio on KFI was a guy who was broadcasting live from the Reagan Library, which kept us company. It took 10 minutes to move a few yards. We were looking at bushes on the side of the road and clocking how long it took to get to each one.

Unfortunately, the talk show host was interviewing people who had come from Reagan's viewing, and they had been waiting for 5 hours before they got to the rotunda. We started to get worried. In half an hour, moving slower than a snail with crutches, we reached the exit offramp. We could see curving ahead of us nothing but a sea of red snaking up the overpass and around a bend. Below us in either direction on the freeway as far as the eye could see were "diamond necklaces," white lights of the cars in single file waiting to exit the freeway from both the east and the west.

An hour later, we were finally off the offramp, at the first signal on the overpass. The radio announced that it would probably take all night just to get to the parking lot from the freeway, and several hours of line-waiting around and around Moorpark College, until you got on the shuttle buses to drive the 5 miles to the Reagan Library, where no doubt there would still be lines, and then waiting to get back.

It was 1 a.m. We did not have all night, if we wanted to stay up all night. We could not afford to be stuck up at the Ranch all night when my husband needed to leave to work by 6 a.m. but wouldn't be able to because of the little boys.

We turned around.

We were so frustrated that we did not get to pay our respects.

However, as we left on the 118 E, we were completely SHOCKED. In the opposite direction (which was the main direction to the Reagan Library from all of L.A. and the Interstate 5 and most other directions) as we literally sped along on an empty highway at 80 mph, we were still passing an all-lane STANDSTILL several minutes later. There had to be about 5 miles of packed cars. The freeway was stopped dead. In the midst were some trucks, simply stuck in the middle of the people en route to see Reagan. I have never seen anything like it in my life nor will I ever, I believe. The outpouring of sympathy for the Reagans is absolutely without precedent. It brought tears to my eyes.

About 10 miles later, we stopped to use a restroom. We did not stop at one of the offramps near Moorpark. We did not pull into the first gas station we saw there. And yet in this little gas station, at 1 a.m., there was a line in the MiniMart to use the restroom, populated only by well-dressed turnarounds from the Reagan viewing! We were all so disappointed. We spoke only of the greatness of Reagan and how sad we were that we were not able to pay tribute tonight. I think the turbaned, bearded manager was astounded at our conversations. I can only imagine the cameraderie amongst the actual line waiters at the College.

This morning I find that our turnaround was for the best for our situation: the wait overnight had grown to 10 hours. And yes, the freeway standstill is for a full 5 miles.

Tired but proud of my fellow Americans,
Yaelle --

[diotima]

Thanks for the report.

We had been there about 13 hours before we started the drive back. Around 11:30pm there were six miles of cars backed up on the 118 and as we listened to KABC people were calling in giving traffic suggestions.

[Brad’s Gramma]

How wonderful of all of you for getting that motorhome and letting people stop in to rest, etc. Not everyone has the stamina to stand there for that long, and I'm SURE your being there was a needed rest stop.

I'm saving this thread... the next time some bozo says anything about the fruits and nuts in CA I'm gonna direct them to these crowds. You BETTER save them on your server forever and ever and ever! I don't see fruits and nuts, do you? I see regular average people, coming to pay their respects.

Thanks to all of you!!!

[Steven W.]

check out the AP photo michigander supplied for the post I created after I returned earlier this morning as I was equally touched by the miles of car headlights so reminiscent of the closing scene in "Field of Dreams".

[Bob J]

Thanks for photo shopping that pic. IF we had time, we would have done something like that, but alas, we only had time to afix a few flags and put up the banner so FReepers could find us in the crowd.

[Bob J]

Thanks Shrew, but to be fair we had a contribution jar in the RV if FReepers wanted to contribute to the cost and several did.

One other not. During the day we had a constant stream of people coming up to the van, asking what it was about, if we were from Cruise America and renting RV's (heheh), etc. At one point, a woman and man approached and asked if we had any flags available. We went and got some extras we had in the back and then I took a second look at the woman...it was Stephanie Zimbalist. I mentioned to her how much I liked Remington Steele.

[New Perspective]

Well, I thought that since you made that effort, I could try and help out a bit.

[RSmithOpt]

Thanks. Wondered what it all looked like out there. A couple of pics show some Freepers celebrating the legacy of a great man. A few for the Gipper!

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks for the pics, Diotima ! And for the ping FIAAUSS !

[gopwhit]

I'm so sorry I missed you guys! I got right in line and ended up waiting 6 1/2 hours and getting over to the library about 3 am! What a long night, but I'm SO glad I did it. We should definitely do something later on for Reagan as a tribute.....

[nerdgirl]

thanks very much for the pictures - I am getting a chuckle today from liberal media attempts to say that all of the memorializing of Reagan is going to somehow hurt Bush. Anybody looking at these pictures can tell that our country knows a good man when we see one, and Kerry doesn't come close.