Historic Clairmont with Don & Diane

Sept 25^th

A nice quiet morning, we cleaned the coach and got ready for company. Don and Diane arrived about 10:30 AM from their home in La Puente, about a half hour away. We haven’t seen them since our RV adventures two years ago but it was like we hadn’t even been apart. What great friends!! We visited here at the coach for an hour then spent some time planning today’s visit and things to do next week.

Diane Don and Tina

Once we had a plan it was time to head for lunch. With Don driving and me riding shotgun we headed for the small college town of Claremont about eight miles away. They knew of a great little restaurant called “Kick Back Jack” with great food. We got there and the wait was only fifteen minutes so we were seated pretty quickly. The food was outstanding!!

Downtown Claremont

The Captain and his Admiral

Leaving the restaurant we drove into the heart of Clarement, a small town best known for its tree-lined streets, historic buildings, and college campuses like Pamona College and the Claremont McKenna College renowned for international relations, studies in political science and the Kravis leadership institute. We parked in the Village by the Pamona College and walked (shopped) our way around town eventually ending up at the historic train depot.

Trackside view of Historic Claremont Depot

Going my way?

The depot, originally a wooden structure build in 1887 along the railroad tracks where Claremont began as a townsite on the Santa Fe Railroad route into California. The current building was built in 1927 to replace the old wood Victorain station. In 1967, the Santa Fe closed the Depot and it remained vacant until 1990, when the City of Claremont purchased the building and restored it to its 1920s splendor to serve as a transit center for Metrolink commuter trains and a regional bus system.

Bike Station Claremont

One of the neat features at the depot is a “Bike Station’. This is a secure facility for indoor bicycle parking, 24 hours a day, seven days a week with 78 bicycle racks, a restroom and changing room, a repair stand and tools for self-repair, and retail accessory sales. Valet repair service and bike rentals are available through an operating partnership with JAX Bicycle Center, located across the street. The Bike Station is funded through a membership arrangement with options ranging from daily to annual plans.

Summer House in Claremont

Leaving town we passed the “Summer House”, Claremont¹s only full-scale, classic Queen Anne Victorian home. Built in 1887, it is marked by three gables, bays, sun rooms, excellent wood ornamentation in fish scale and diamond shingle patterns, and horizontal and vertical clapboard siding. The home of one of the founders of Pomona College, the paint is close to the original colors.

Heading north we thought we’d drive to Mt Baldy but with no map and very poor roadside rout markings we spent half an hour driving around before giving up and heading back to the coach, leaving Mt Baldy for tomorrows adventure.

Back at the coach we grabbed one of the picnic tables from an empty site and moved it to our site so we could sit outside and visit. We watched the dogs run around and roll in the grass and talked about going to the LA County Fair and a demolition derby – lot’s of fun coming up.

After Don and Diane left about 5:00 PM, Tina went and did some research on the Fair and we ordered tickets for the Demolition Derby Thursday evening. We had leftovers from lunch for dinner – heh, heh – and spent the rest of the evening relaxing, doing the blog and uploading the photos.

To see all our photos, go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski