San Bernardino County

Last time we were in Yucaipa, Ca and now we are still heading inland again to avoid all the rain that California is getting slammed with.

Adelanto, Ca

Ever heard of this little town? Me either, which is why this was a perfect stay. It is located northwest of Victorville with a population of roughly 20.000 people. If you read the last post from Yucaipa, you will know that that area has and still is inhabited by the Serrano Native Americans here also.

Where to stay?

We stayed at a small park Adelanto RV Park http://www.adelantorvpark.com/. It only had 74 sites, but it was clean and well kept. We checked in at the office and had an escort to our site. Our site sat on gravel with full hookup of water, electric, and sewer. We stayed for 2 nights at $50 a night.

The views around this park were amazing with the snow capped mountains in all directions

What to do?

Go to McDonalds! Not just any McDonalds, but the very first one! We were inspired by the movie The Founder https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4276820/ staring Michael Keaton from 2016. Great movie to watch even if you can’t visit the original site.

The first McDonalds was a barbeque restaurant with a staff off 20 carhops and 25 items on the menu. In 1948 the McDonalds BBQ closed, for 2 months while they remodeled the kitchen to only cook hamburgers and fries.

McDonalds reopened on Dec. 12,1948,without any carhops, but Speedy was the official mascot, and so began merchandising as only McDonalds can do. The prices are hard to believe – 15 cents for a hamburger, and a whopping 10 cents for fries! Hey McDonalds – can you bring those prices back to California please!!! Within a year, McDonalds was producing mass quantities of hamburgers and fries and they began selling hundreds of shakes every week as well. This attracted the attention of (in my opinion) our villian, Ray Kroc. Ray had a vision for McDonalds, and along the way to making that reality, his methods changed the nature of what was a small business burger joint.

In 1953 McDonalds was demolished yet again for a better building with 2 golden arches which became the prototype for every McDonalds until 1968.

In 1962 the building was torn down again and a concerned neighbor prevented the wrecking crew from taking down the original street sign. A new building was built and housed Lopex Music Store. In 1992 the building was bought by the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera but was eventually foreclosed on.

This railing is to pay homage to the opera house.

In 1998 Albert Okura, a big fan of Mcdonalds bought the foreclosed property for $135,000 and decided to open an unofficial McDonalds museum specializing on the early years. The museum open on Dec. 12, 1998 on the 50th anniversary of the original McDonalds. The museum is open 7 days a week, is free but gladly accept donations. It’s good fun watching the reactions of others in the museum as they discover toys and memorabilia from their childhood. Spending an hour or so here really can take you back in time. For us, seeing the 70’s era brought back memories of our youth, and seeing the 90’s era allowed us a glimpse back to when our kids grew up.

If your old enough to remember the Styrofoam containers they got ’em here! And oh, what about all the rides and characters?

Remember Hamburgler or Evil Grimace? Oh what memories it was to visit. We used to have birthday parties at McDonalds and they were the best back in the day.

After visiting the McDonalds, of course we had to go to Redlands to get our McDonalds fix. While driving around we noticed the beautiful landscape. The picture is of the area in the past under a freeway overpass. Their were several pictures and difficult to capture while we were driving.

We were enjoying the beautiful area not far away was a small glass museum called the Historical Glass museum in Redlands. It is the largest collection of American-made glass west of the Mississippi River. All of the glass on display was all donated to the museum to fill the 6 rooms of the lower level.

The house was built in 1903 by Jerome Seymour a woodworker and architect. The house stayed in the family until 1977 when Seymour’s daughter Emma Cryer past away. The house was purchased by Dixie and Doc Huckabee with the intention of showcasing their glass collection. Other glass collectors joined in and they formed the Historical Glass Foundation. In 1985 after 11 years of hard work, the doors were opened to the public

Build by Jerome Seymore and still showcases the wooden doors from his planning mill and woodworking days

My favorite display was this collection of 500 cruets.

Fun Fact-Huell Howser visited this museum.

Admission is free with a suggested $5 per person donation. They do have a gift shop on site to buy your own glass as well. If your interested in visiting, they are open on weekend from 12-4p.m. https://www.cityofredlands.org/post/historical-glass-museum

Also while in the area, we are known to visit college campuses for no reason other than just curiosity. This trip was no different and we drove around CSUSB. The school was opened in 1965 and not a very big school but the views were amazing with the snow capped mountains

On our way back, I was excited to see the town of Victorville because it was new to us. We thought about visiting the California Route 66 museum but only had 30 min. till closing and we didn’t think we could do it justice. Although we only saw a small portion of Victorville, we were not all that impressed with what we saw.

We enjoyed our stay in San Bernardino and learned a lot. Stayed tuned for our next episode, we are staying in a ghost town.