Chapter Thirty-Five San Simeon to San Diego

Chapter Thirty-Five
San Simeon to San Diego

About four years after we got married, Ann and I applied and were accepted to go to the International Convention of Jehovah Witnesses in Warsaw, Poland. We made an arrangement with a friend and spiritual sister, Jan Jones, to come to our home on New York Dr. and stay with the kids while we went to the convention in Poland. So, before going to the convention we felt like we should do something special for the kids. We started out by going north to San Simeon to tour Hearst Castle. We had a bit of a shaky start. We were driving a Chevie Civic which was not a large family car, but the kids weren’t that big either at that time. We started off on the Simi Valley route and hadn’t got out of the San Fernando Valley when we had a flat tire. We knew we were on a tight schedule so we drove up to San Simeon on the spare tire; it was one of those donut like tires. It was a bit spooky but we made it. We toured the castle and I know I was impressed and I think the rest of the family was too. Especially impressive are the two swimming pools. There’s an indoor and a outdoor pool. The outdoor pool was used in the filming of the Kirk Douglas movie “Spartacus”.

On our way back we headed back to the Simi Valley route when in the Moorpark area we had another flat tire. Fortunately, we were in town. Eric and I rolled the flat tire a couple of blocks off the beaten path to a tire place and bought a used tire. We rolled it back to the car and installed and we were off again heading south to Buena Park.

In Buena Park we first went to the Wax Museum. I think everyone enjoyed it. Most of the figures were very good likeness of the real people. I remember one display was of the USS Enterprise bridge with all the main characters from Startrek. After the Wax Museum we went to Knotts Berry Farm. I managed to lose our motel room key on one of the rides. I had the key in a shirt pocket and of course it was a ride on which you would go upside down for part of the ride. Gravity did its job and we didn’t even try to retrieve it. Fortunately the motel office supplied us with another key without any hassle. We took the kids to Medieval Times but I don’t remember whether that was a separate trip or part of this one. We all had a great time at Medieval Times.

We weren’t through yet. From Buena Park we drove down to San Diego to Vacation Village in the Mission Bay area. As I recall it was like an island retreat with water on three sides. We stayed in a nice motel room which was like separate units. We rented a bicycle like surrey that we could all ride in and went riding around the resort area which was rather extensive. Eric and I tried our hand at tennis. We also rented one of those feet paddle board type boats. I remember that Ann, Eddie (I think) and I went for a ride and had a little difficulty in fighting an outward underwater flow. We all had a great time there. I think the resort is still there but under different ownership now.

A couple of weeks after the excursion with the kids Ann and I went on our first International trip to Poland. That was in August of 1989. This August it will have been twenty years since we went on the trip. We first flew to New York and we stayed a couple of days with a spiritual sister named Becky Ramirez, her daughter Laura and son Louis. Jan Jones knew Becky and made the arrangement for us. She became our guide and we went on tour of the Brooklyn printing facilities and headquarters of Jehovah Witnesses. Also, we toured Bethel where all the volunteer workers live. At the headquarters Becky got us in to meet brother Carey Barber of the Governing Body. He was very pleasant and listened to me go on about the convention that we were going to in Warsaw and all the arrangements. It turns out he was on the program at the convention but had politely listen to me anyway. Becky also took us on the subway through New York on our way to New Jersey to see the refurbished Stanley Theatre. The Witnesses using volunteer workers refurbished the old theatre bringing it back to its original state to be used as an assembly hall. It was very impressive. We’re very thankful for Becky and her family’s hospitality shown us while we were in Brooklyn.

From Brooklyn we took what they call a “gypsy taxi” to the Kennedy Airport. The driver lived in Queens and was very talkative. He referred to the police using the French word “gendarme” which surprised Ann because she thought I was the only one who called police “gendarme”.

From New York we flew British Airways to Heathrow in London and on our long approximately nine hour flight we saw “My Alibi” with Tom Selleck for the first time. On our flight back the movie being shown was “My Alibi”. We had about an hour layover before flying a Polish airline on into Warsaw. When we landed we could see armed soldiers around our airplane. In August of 1989 the Russians were in their last days of occupation of Poland. Later that fall the Berlin Wall came down.

After de-boarding we found that though we made it safely to Poland Ann’s luggage did not. It took about four days for her bag to catch up to us. We later found that it had most likely been mishandled at Kennedy Airport. We found out the hard way that you need to pack a few essential clothing articles in a carry-on bag. Also, a husband and wife team should not have a “his bag” and a “her bag”. Fortunately for Ann some of the sisters were able to help her out, but she did have to put up with being the subject of friendly jokes.

In the next chapter I’ll relate more about our trip through Poland and Great Britain.