White House Diaries

Friday, February 14, 1986

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Off to Calif. by way of St. Louis where we do a fundraiser for former Gov. Kit Bond who will undoubtedly be U.S. Sen. Cand. for Eagletons seat—he’s retiring. Turned out to be a good but brief stop. There were 2 affairs—an individual photo session with about 150 people who had paid $5000. Then into the luncheon—no lunch for us—I spoke & we left with the band playing “Calif. Here I come.”

Arriving at Point Mugu we were told we could only “helo” to the Santa Barbara Airport—the ranch was closed in. We drove up—the 1st time in more than 6 yrs. All we can say about the few days there is that 3 Pacific storms nose to tail came through. We never could see the ranch around us—first fog, rain & wind. On one day a let up between showers allowed Barney, Dennis & me to cut up a fallen oak limb for fire wood & haul 2 loads of the brush to the dump. Lucky hasn’t forgotten us—we have muddy prints (paws) on our clothes to prove it.

There were more birthday & valentine gifts to open—phone calls to make & our new tractor to see.

There was also homework—a statement on the Philippine election—stolen by Marcos. I ordered Admiral Poindexter to contact our friends in Japan, Korea & Singapore about what course we might follow together. Then a call came re the Shuttle tragedy. Apparently the representative of the co. that makes the rocket boosters refused to sign the certificate for launch and someone in Florida got 2 N.A.S.A. officials to sign off without telling them of the negative report on the booster.

Weatherwise there was no change and Sat. we drove down to Pt. Mugu. I got on A.F.1 for the trip back to Wash. Nancy continued on into L.A. for a trip to Texas—a dinner there. She’ll be back in Wash. Wed. Rex & I are lonesome.