It's a Wonderful Life

I never visited Soviet Russia, but I imagine it looked a lot like the California DMV.

Many years ago, my local DMV office in Laguna Hills, California, was a lovely place. It had blue carpeting, counters made of wood (or some other dark substance), low lighting, comfortable chairs, and friendly people. On the few occasions I was there, I never experienced more than a 10-minute wait. It resembled a Starbucks more than a government office.

Then something happened. At some point the office was remodeled and transformed into the height of bureaucratic institutionalism.

Now there are white floors, white walls, and glaring fluorescent lights. There are rows of chairs cordoned off into what resembles a holding cell. The line to check in extends out the door, and once you check in, you are tersely given a number and sent to the holding cell. Last year when I had to renew my license in person, we walked in and Elias immediately whimpered, "I don't like this place." It does give off a truly cold, unsettling vibe.

Our experience in Texas was much different. Before we left on our trip I had to call a few times with questions. The folks at the Polk County Tax Assessor's Office and the Department of Public Safety answered both the phone and my questions in a timely manner. When we got there, we saw that the Tax Assessor's Office looked like something out of Bedford Falls. I half expected to see Jimmy Stewart manning the phone. The people were helpful and, best of all, accessible.

Even so, I was concerned about my task for today: calling to get a letter stating that we never had the title to our Pilot issued in Texas. It seemed like a slightly unusual request, plus it's always harder to prove a negative. But I figured I needed to call and get the ball rolling.

So I called the Tax Assessor's Office where we had registered our cars. The woman who answered transfered me to the vehicle registration department (which was probably the woman sitting right next to her), and I explained the situation. She asked for our license plate number, our names, and an address. Then she said, "Ok, I'll try to get that letter in the mail to you today."

Wow.

Needless to say, we will miss that kind of efficiency.

I just tried making an appointment to get my license here in California, since you're supposed to get your license within 10 days of becoming a resident. The first available time slot is December 7.

Getting Some Kicks

We headed up to Pomona today for the 58th Annual California RV Show. It was pretty disappointing, to be honest. Since we already have our trailer, we went mainly in hopes of checking out some peddlers of various wares we might need while on the road. To our dismay, there were hardly any vendors there.

Since we didn't spend much time at the show, I decided to take Steve and the kids on a fun little trip.

First we stopped at No Sugar Added in Claremont, my favorite purveyor of cloth diapers, wooden toys, and other such articles.

Then I had everyone pile into the car to go on a little trip down Foothill Boulevard, part of old Route 66.

First stop was to see the Madonna of the Trail, which I wrote about in a recent post. Sure enough, she was right there at Foothill and Euclid. I really don't know how I missed her all those times, but, in my defense, she stands on the center median of the Boulevard off to one side, not right on a corner. I always drove past her, rather than toward her.

I left Steve and the kids in the car while I went to get some photos.



I wanted to try to get a photo of myself with her, but there were no available pedestrians around. I'm a big fan of pointing one's camera at oneself with outstretched arms, but there were a ton of cars waiting at the lights, and I was sure the drivers were all staring at me, which made me too self-conscious to try.

Then it was off to the Wigwam Motel!

I had driven there twice before. The first time was my freshman year of college, late at night, when my friend and I were starving. We were sick of Taco Bell, and Denny's had an inexplicably long wait that night. There weren't too many other dining options at midnight in Claremont back then, so we decided to drive until we found something.

My sense of direction isn't that great, so I headed toward what I thought was Ontario Airport. Instead, we drove and drove and drove down Foothill Boulevard--encountering no open restaurants--until we reached San Bernardino, about 30 miles away. At that point we resigned ourselves to two facts: This wasn't the way to the airport, and we weren't eating until morning.

I turned the car around only to notice a ring of giant teepees in front of me. I knew of the Wigwam Motels, but I had no idea they were right there! I vowed to go back another time, preferably in daylight.

A year or two later, on a day I had nothing else to do, I drove out there again. I wanted to see the teepees, but I also wanted to drive farther down, just to find more evidence of Route 66's heyday.

The area is built up now, but once in a while, between newly constructed strip malls and housing tracts, you can glimpse indications of the past. There are some tiny old buildings--some abandoned, some still in use--ancient motels boasting "Color TV!",  and the occasional signs in googie-architecture style.

So that day, back in college, I decided I'd drive until it got dark. But I underestimated how long it would take to get to the Wigwam Motel, and by the time I made it, the sun was going down. A little ways up ahead was a rail yard with a giant smoke stack that freaked me out, so I turned around and went home. (I have a fear of tall lurking objects.)

Today I had no intention of trekking farther than the Wigwams (which, yet again, took longer to get to than I imagined), but this time I was going to stop and check them out.

For many years the motel was extremely seedy and actually embraced that image, boasting a sign suggesting that people "do it in a teepee." However, I had read that new owners had recently renovated the place and tried to make it more family-friendly.

When I pulled in, the manager, a young guy, came walking up to the car. I thought he was going to tell us to leave if we weren't staying there, but instead he offered to let us look around and even showed us the inside of one of the teepees.

I have to say that the room, the grounds, and the pool were impeccable. Elias, of course, was thrilled that they looked just like the Kozy Kones from Cars.



We talked with the manager for a while and walked around a bit. We told the guy that we'd love to stay there sometime, and we weren't just giving him lip service. We really do want to stay there. Who wouldn't want to sleep in a big, old, historic teepee? (I did not see any signs imploring us to "do it" in one.)

Next time we go back (hopefully soon) we will stay there for a night or two. Maybe we'll make it down a bit farther on Route 66, because I would like to see some more relics of the era. Steve will have to drive, though, because of that big lurking smoke stack.

Madonna of the Trail

(photo by WG Finely, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License)


During my senior year of college I took a History/American Studies course called "The American Highway." It was basically a study of the history and cultural implications of (wait for it) the American highway, from the early days of dirt roads to the completion of the Interstate system.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had kept nearly all of my books from college. I also mentioned that I wound up parting with most of them this summer when I finally cleared out our bookshelves. There were, however, a few that I kept.

One of those is a book I was assigned to read in my American Highway class: Uneasy Rider: The Interstate Way of Knowledge. I'll admit that I didn't read the entire book when I took the class. (I admit this with knowledge that I'm going to send a link to this post to the professor who taught the class. Hi, Stu!) I got partway through, then my very important life (read: baseball games) got in the way. But I always meant to go back and read it, and now I am. We're about to set out on the road, so why not read up on it?

The author's premise is that, unlike other writers who look for the "authentic" America on the backroads, he can find it on the Interstate. I could write a whole treatise on that theory (and did, for the class), but that's not the point of this post, so I'll spare you.

The book is filled largely with the author's ego, and also with a tremendous amount of tedious minutiae. It is also, though, speckled with incredibly interesting nuggets of information, which is what keeps me reading it.

I discovered one of those nuggets yesterday: The Madonna of the Trail.

The Madonna of the Trail is an homage to the pioneering spirit of the women who accompanied their men into the western frontier. As you can see from the photo above, the Madonna holds a baby in one arm and has a child clinging to her leg. I can relate. (She also carries a rifle, which I don't, but feel almost obligated to do now that I'm a Texan.)

There are 12 such Madonnas installed in as many states along the National Old Trails Road by the Daughters of the American Revolution. They were all dedicated in the late 1920s, and were part of a pet project by future president Harry Truman.

As an American history nerd, I was excited to have "discovered" these statues, but also regretted that I hadn't known of them before.

When I read the list of where these statues are located I almost literally kicked myself. The westernmost statue stands at the corner of Foothill Blvd. and Euclid Ave. in Upland, California, less than five miles from where I went to college.

I can't tell you how many dozens of times I passed through that intersection. I even recall being stopped at that intersection many times because there is also a Euclid Avenue in my hometown-area of Cleveland, and apparently I was too busy reminiscing to notice the 18-foot-tall monument on the corner.

I do have to question the relevance of locating the statue in Upland. Yes, the highway passed through the city (Foothill Blvd. is also part of the old Route 66), but beyond that, it seems like a stretch. I admit that my memory of westward expansion is rusty, but I don't recall pioneers flocking in their covered wagons to Upland. It's the thought that counts, though.

For a while now I have planned on taking the family on a mini-roadtrip up to that area. One of the original Wigwam Motels still exists in San Bernardino, a fact a friend and I discovered one sleepless college night while searching in vain for a midnight snack. Now I have another stop to add to that trip, and a renewed desire to go.

Apple-Picking

Here are a few photos from our apple- and raspberry-picking adventure in Oak Glen last week. Our efforts resulted in enough fruit for two amazingly wonderful apple-raspberry pies (not pictured).











This final picture has absolutely nothing to do with fruit harvesting, but I feel bad that Anna dominated the previous photos. This is my handsome boy and the Lego Star Wars vehicle he built the other day.

Bureaucracy

In the state of California, if you're towing a trailer with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating less than 15,000 pounds, you need to take a simple 20-question written test for a trailer endorsement on your license.

Logic would dictate that if you're towing more than 15,000 pounds, you'd need to take a longer written test or maybe a simple driving test, right?

Hahahahahahahaha! If you said yes, you clearly don't know California.

No, if your trailer has a GVWR over 15,000 pounds, you need to get a non-commercial Class A license--essentially the same license big rig operators have.

That entails taking a written test to get a permit. Then, any time you tow your trailer, you need to have someone with a Class A license with you. Then you need to take your person and your trailer back to the DMV to do a rigorous driving, maneuverability, and safety test.

Our trailer has a GVWR of 15,500 pounds. If it were 500 pounds lighter, Steve would be done in about 10 minutes. Since it's 500 pounds heavier, we get to jump through a bunch of hoops. Don't get me wrong: I understand the need to have more stringent requirements for larger vehicles, but doesn't it seem like there should be some sort of middle-ground?

There are a lot of people out there with vehicles over 15,000 pounds who don't have a Class A license, either because they don't know they need one or because the DMV doesn't realize it. Steve has read stories about people going their entire RVing lives without the proper license and never running into trouble. He has also read about people losing their driving privileges because of it.

We're not ones to risk things when it comes to the law, so we're going by the book. Obviously this raises some questions about how, exactly, we get our trailer to California and what we do with it once we're here.

My suggestion was to drive it to the Arizona-California border and have someone with a Class A license meet us, then figure out the rest later. My contention was that if the states we're going through have no requirement for a special license, we're fine. Steve, on the other hand, contends that if we're driving with a California license, it needs to be a proper California license, regardless of the state we're in.

Rather than consult a lawyer, we have decided that the best course of action is for Steve to get his Class A before we leave. That will require borrowing a truck and fifth wheel, and also borrowing a person with Class A license to take to the test. Hopefully between friends and people in the fire department we'll be able to secure both. And hopefully he'll pass. (Thirty years of maneuvering fire trucks ought to pay off in this situation.)

Obviously other states come with their own quirks and frustrations, but it seems to be especially rampant here. Just one more reason we're not too upset about leaving California.