Park 13: Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area & Juan Bautista de Anza NHT

8/18/12. After leaving the Channel Islands, we drove to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. We found the entrance, parked, and set off to find the Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center. This looked like an interesting location from the website, however, we had trouble even finding it, tucked back in the woods, about a quarter mile from the parking lot. There were no signs leading the way, and even the building was hard to identify. It seemed as thought they didn't really want too many people visiting!

Garden outside the Satwiwa Center

One of the trails in the Western Recreation Area

The building was new and had a few simple displays about native American culture. There were no programs going on today, even though it was a Saturday and we saw many people hiking in the park. We got our passport stamp, bought a few books about native Americans, and then walked the trail back to the parking lot.

Adaptive reuse exhibit

We decided to try the main Visitor Center (Anthony C. Beilson Interagency Visitor Center) which was recently opened in a newly renovated building of the King Gilette Ranch. This large space included a large array of beautifully designed educational exhibits, activities, and displays. According to the NPS website, "the building is the first "net zero" visitor center in the National Park Service and is working with the U.S. Green Building Council to qualify the building as a LEED certified facility."

In reading through the exhibits, we discovered that the Santa Monica mountains have been the site for many movies and TV shows, including MASH. We decided to head over to the area in which MASH was filmed and we were stunned when we saw the views and how much it looked like the show! The trails to the actual site were longer than we wanted to hike, so we decided to save that for our next trip here, ha ha!

Area of the Santa Monica Mountains where MASH was filmed

This area is also part of the Juan Bautista National Heritage Trail. According to the NPS website, in 1775-76, Anza led more than 240 men, women and children on an epic journey to establish a settlement at San Francisco Bay. The 1,200-mile Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail commemorates, protects, marks, and interprets the route traveled by Anza and the colonists during the years 1775 and 1776 from Sonora, Mexico (New Spain), to settle Alta California and establish a mission and presidio at today's San Francisco, California.

We toured a bit more of the recreation area, then headed to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Our goal was the Disney Archive special exhibit, but we also enjoyed the rest of the museum a great deal, including the tour of Air Force One.

Catherine practicing for when she is president at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

The amazing size of Air Force One

Late in the afternoon, we left the mountain area and headed to Los Angeles hotel so that we would be closer to the airport for our morning flight back home. We were sorry to end our trip, but amazed at how well all of plans worked out and our ability to see all the parks we had planned!

View of the mountains from the Reagan Library