Rancho Cucumonga

Today we went to the Wine Tailor, a custom vintage winery opened in 2004 on the site of the oldest commercial winery in California and the 2nd oldest in the Untied States. It became a popular destination for travelers along Route 66 until development overran most of the vineyards and it was converted into a retail center.















We next visited the Rain House. The Mission San Gabriel established the 13,000 acre Cucamonga Rancho as a site for grazing cattle in the 1820s. Later it was bought by John Rains for $16,500 and in 1860 he built this house for $18,000. It is built in the Spanish style with the inside courtyard. Bricks masons used red clay found adjacent to the site to create fired bricks.It was interesting to see the difference in the brick building. Every ninth row the bricks were inserted with the ends on the outside. The walls were about a foot thick so the fireplaces in every room warmed the brick walls keeping the house warm when needed. You can see tiny bricks in the bottom rows in the carriage house. The flat roof was waterproofed with tar from the brea pits in Orange County. An open flume carried water from adjacent springs through the kitchen, into the patio and under the house to irrigate the orchard, cooling the house. An interesting piece of furniture was the 'petticoat mirror' where the mirror was at the bottom of a dresser so you could check your petticoat. I hadn't seen one of these before.



We're at a hotel for two nights as the moho can't come out in the rain so we decided to stay here because the name amuses me. We stopped in at the Route 66 Memories house, on this stretch of the nations first transcontinental highway. Known as both the Mother Road or America's Main Street, Route 66, captured the romance of the open road. This town celebrates this pop culture icon with much memorabilia and murals. You can imagine how Ron loved the sign in the upstairs window.