Visit to Hemet, Pomona, and Redlands. CA

   

     We left our cozy little spot at the Chula Vista RV Resort to do a little exploring to the north.  Ben and Joanne are both working all week, which gives us plenty of free time to wander around CA and see what there is to see.  We traveled about an hour and a half north up to Hemet, a city we are very familiar with.  Thirty years ago, Debbie and I used to pass through Hemet on our way to mountain village of Idyllwild, most every weekend we were off.  Thousand Trails used to have a great campground up there, and it was much cooler in the mountains than down in Alpine or Campo.  We camped in our old Chevy truck with a cabover camper which worked out just great for us.  We even had the rear window removed so Debbie could get back in the camper and make us a lunch or grab a road soda if I got too hot.  But that's a different story and I digress....
     Ben, Joanne, and Jamo stopped over for dinner a few nights before we left on this excursion, and we had a nice visit and dinner.  Jamo had a little trouble settling down though.  Seems like there were lots of people around the park that hadn't met him yet, and he knew they were dying to.  He'll go for a walk with Grammy, but he doesn't like to get too far away from Ben or Joanne.
     Yesterday we ventured up to Pomona and the Los Angeles Fairgrounds for the FMCA Reunion.  We had never been to one, and since we're thinking of attending the rally in Burlington this summer, we thought we'd check it out.  The fairgrounds are in a beautiful suburb of Pomona right off of I-10.  We wandered through the display buildings, and picked up a few item for repairs to Big Red.  We would have liked to visit the RV's, but the temps were pushing well into the 90's, and it was just too hot out on the tarmac.  If we had been attending the rally, there were several seminars which Debbie would have attended, but that just didn't work out.  I carried my camera all day, and never took a single shot of the fairgrounds.  Sorry about that...
     Today we drove about 30 minutes from Hemet to the city of Redlands, Ca.

 Long before Palm Springs became the location that it is today, Redlands was the winter getaway of the 1890's.  By the mid 1880's, Redlands was known as the "navel orange capital of the world."  Developers designed tree lined streets throughout the village, surrounded by orange groves.  Today the orange groves have diminished, but the tree lined streets and beautiful mansions still welcome today's visitors.  Orange grove money created libraries, parks, and the Redlands Bowl amphitheater.

Murals decorate many of the buildings around a bustling downtown area.  Today, one of the downtown streets was blocked off as the residents celebrated the day with an art festival that included live music.
     Our first stop in town was a quick visit to the A.K. Smiley Public Library, built in the late 1890's.  Alfred Smiley was one of Redland's winter residents, and he and his twin brother Albert, worked to bring a library and park to fruition.

     Behind the library, we found the Lincoln Memorial Shrine, a memorial to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War period.  It includes a Research Center, and houses the largest collection of Lincoln Memorabilia west of the Mississippi.

The collection includes manuscripts, books, and artifacts donated by Robert Watchorn in 1932.  The collection has grown to thousands of volumes on Lincoln and the Civil War, and are available to scholars and students.
     One of the mansions that is available for public tours is the Kimberly Crest House and Gardens.  Mr Kimberley was the founder and President of the paper company Kimberly-Clark.  He and his wife purchased the home in 1905, and for the next 75 years, this family maintained this home.  Mary Kimberly Shirk, the youngest Kimberly child married in 1905, but her husband died in 1919.

She returned to Redlands in 1920 and remained in Kimberly-Crest for nearly 60 years.  She was a strong advocate of education, serving as a trustee of Scripps College, as well as its President for 2 years.  Unfortunately, I was unable to photograph and of the interior of the mansion, but it is full of furniture and relics that were present when it was owned by the Kimberly's.  It is well worth a visit and the admission price.