KosherRoadTrip.com

Sometimes a road trip is right under our noses. Or, at least, some place we pass on our way to another destination.

Such is the case with the Stagecoach Inn Museum in Newbury Park, CA. Newbury Park, in case you’ve never heard of it, is near Thousand Oaks. You’ve probably seen the brown California historic landmark sign along the 101. That was actually the inspiration for our stop. I finally decided to make one of those signs we blow past on our way to somewhere else, the destination for a Sunday road trip.

I wasn’t expecting much when I saw the Disneyland-ish exterior of the “Stagecoach Inn,” especially since I’d read that it wasn’t only the façade that was new, but that the entire structure had been rebuilt from scratch in the 1970’s after a fire destroyed what existed of the original inn… This is my great grandmother’s ring. Well, actually, I lost her ring, but I had this one made to look almost exactly like it. No, the Stagecoach Inn has a lot more going for it than a new, but authentic looking structure. The architectural blueprints of the original inn were not in the building at the time of the fire and so this new building is carefully designed to resemble the original. The real appeal, on an historic level, is what the inn contains, because really, it is a museum holding a collection of interesting items from California’s Victorian past.

An enthusiast for small museums, I was pleased to find docents in every room, ready to explain what all the gadgets and photos were about—and there was a lot to explain. One room was devoted to the brief history of the phonograph, with a remarkable collection of actual phonographs, the wax cylinders, and one use only needles. In an age when even DVD’s have become passé, a short lesson on this curious invention of Thomas Edison is itself worth a stop at the museum.

But there is quite a bit more packed into the $4 price of admission. There’s a “cowboy’s” room, done in period furnishings, a room of equipment used for ironing and pressing clothes, and a rooms furnished for the innkeeper’s family, including a Victorian style nursery.

My favorite room is the kitchen. Please ask a lot of questions while you are in there so you can learn about all the fascinating obsolete instruments and utensils that fill the room. The woman who showed this room to us said that she personally remembers having blocks of ice delivered to her apartment in New York when she was a child. She showed us an instrument that was used to scrape a block of ice to make snow cones for the children as a treat. I had seen iceboxes before (which were used before electric refrigerators) and heard of ice being delivered, but I’d never seen this sweet tool for making snow cones. There was also a primitive vacuum cleaner, a stovetop toaster and so much more. This is a picture of kitchen life in America before electricity.

Of special interest to girls may be the Victorian bridal gown collection in the foyer and, to children of all ages, the Timber school, next door to the inn. Again, this building is a recent reconstruction of an old school, but is designed to represent a one-room schoolhouse from the 1890’s. The furnishings are authentic, including desks fitted with slots for inkwells and tin lunch pails set in the boys’ coatrooms and girls’ coat rooms, respectively. (For more authentic old school room experience, see the Oak Glen Schoolhouse, mentioned in Jewish Life, Oct. 2006) Make sure to ring the school bell before you leave.

Also on the museum grounds are replicas of a pioneer home, adobe house, a Chumash Indian hut, and a collection of Indian artifacts. I was drawn to the carriage house with its two stagecoaches. While one of the coaches was refurbished for use in some Hollywood films, both are authentic. Take some time to look at the seating arrangements and the wheels and think about people traveling hundreds of miles on unpaved roads without air-conditioning in these horse drawn vehicles. Awesome.

Inexpensive and close by, this is a nice way to spend a couple hours with family and friends on a Sunday afternoon.

Notes:

The Stagecoach Inn Museum, 51 South Ventu Park Rd., Newbury Park, CA 91320, phone: 805-498-9441, www.stagecoachmuseum.org

Hours: Wednesday through Sunday from 1 to 4 P.M. for docent-led tours. Entire complex is open Sunday from 1 to 4 P.M.

One day each year, the “Museums of the Arroyo” in Pasadena host “MOTO Day”, a special day when this network of museums and historic homes is open for free to the public AND free shuttles are provided to transport visitors to all the sights. This year, MOTO Day is on Sunday, May 20, 2007.

There isn’t really time in one day to fully appreciate all the stops on the tour, but over the years I have had the opportunity to dig into most of them. You could put all the locations on a historical time line and start with the earliest, which is the Southwest Museum of the American Indian. There may be some special exhibits and demonstrations there this year in lieu of viewing the permanent collection halls which the museum website says are undergoing extensive preservation efforts. It would probably be best to just ask one of the docents at Heritage Square Museum if they know what’s going on before taking the shuttle over there.

By the way, we park our car at Heritage Square, which is reached by going north on the 110 freeway from downtown Los Angeles and exiting at Avenue 43. You can see the historic houses from the highway so it’s very easy to find the museum. Technically, Heritage Square would be your second stop on the historical location timeline (but since you’re already there…) Heritage Square is a collection of Victorian era houses and buildings which have been rounded up from different locations over the years and brought to the museum grounds to maintain and keep open to the public. Heritage Square not only offers an outside viewing, but an inside look at these beautiful homes as well with period furnishings and docents who are eager to share their knowledge. On the grounds of the park are ongoing demonstrations, reenactments and activities for children such as how to play the old fashioned game of hoop and stick—so don’t be shy!

The third location on the historic timeline would be the Lummis House, which, like Heritage Square, is in Highland Park. Surrounded by a sweet and subtle garden, the Lummis House was built from 1898 to 1910 by a writer named Charles Lummis, who gathered river stones to make his curious little castle.

It is a far cry from the Fenyes Mansion, also built around the turn of the last century. Fully furnished and loaded with artwork, there is a lot to see in this home on “Millionaire’s Row” in Pasadena, but I found the pantry in the kitchen with its old food containers and cooking utensils the most interesting part.

The can’t miss spot on the tour is the Gamble House, which is across the street from the Fenyes mansion/Pasadena Museum of History. The Gamble House is the quintessential example of the American Arts & Crafts style architecture. Built in 1908, everything about it, from the front door to the banisters to the kitchen cabinets, is hand crafted and beautiful—even the walls are made of fine wood. It is a very warm and livable environment.

Finally, on the tour, there is the Los Angeles Police Museum. Frankly, I don’t recall this being on the tour before and consequently I’ve never seen it, but from the looks of the photos on the website, it may be of great interest to the boys in your particular tour group as the museum collection promises antique handcuffs, billy clubs and other necessary tools of law enforcement.

Overall, the stops of the MOTO Day tour would not generally go over well with the pre-school set as the house tours will become very trying to them within thirty seconds, but older children who are accustomed to visiting museums may enjoy it and certainly the demonstrations on the grounds of Heritage Park should be fun.

Notes:
For information on “MOTO DAY” please see: www.museumsofthearroyo.com
Or call: 213-740-8687.
Heritage Square Museum, 3800 Homer St., Los Angeles. Take the 110 North toward Pasadena, exit at Ave. 43
Gamble House: 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, phone: 626-793-3334. The Gamble House is located off the 134 freeway or by taking the 110 N and continuing on to Orange Grove, north of Walnut Ave.

If your little sweeties love science then it will be worth the 45 minutes it takes to get to Santa Ana in order to explore the Discovery Science Center. This is a real hands on, kids oriented center with many different exhibits that require interaction. A tornado, simulated using fog and fans, can be manipulated to dissipate and regroup into a twister (I think that’s my favorite.) A large water table filled with sand and flowing water allows visitors to experiment with erosion. A whole area is devoted to simulating and demonstrating the effects of an earthquake. And there’s always a line of kids to experience lying down on the bed of nails. There’s also a climbing wall, and a giant wheel with fog billowing through it to make cloud rings. Upstairs there are exhibits that test strength and skill, like a chair and pulley contraption to see if you can lift yourself, gizmos to test your reaction time and coordination, and some fun with aerodynamics. A section called “Techno Arts” combines lasers, lights, and sounds for creative interaction, and there are exhibits that demonstrate optical illusions.

The activities at the Discovery Center seem best suited to children ages 5 to 13, especially considering some of the special exhibits coming up like “Sesame Street Presents: The Body” and “Bubblefest,” but most of the exhibits are so well done that the whole family will enjoy participating.

Unlike the California Science Center in Exposition Park, the Discovery Center charges admission ($12.95 for adults, $9.95 for kids) so you might want to consider buying a membership ($89 for family) when you go if there is a possibility you will go more than once in a year. As with the Natural History Museum and the L.A. Zoo, getting a membership allows you entrance into a network of neat places around the country, or, in the case of the Discovery Center, around the world– including Israel! It’s a nice indoor activity to jot on the “fun things to do” list.

Notes:

Discovery Science Center, 2500 N. Main St., Santa Ana 92705, phone:714-542-2823, on the internet: http://64.143.71.42/

What is autumn without fresh from the orchard apples? When summer is officially over and the weather cools off, the call of crunchy tart apples drifts down from the mountains and beckons city dwellers to enjoy the freshest of fruit.

You may recall last year’s Kosher Road Trip to Julian, a small mining town three hours away which remains the premier spot for autumn apples. But there does happen to be a gathering of orchards closer to the Los Angeles area. Oak Glen, just down the 10 E. Freeway, takes half the time to reach (not more than an hour and a half) and, like Julian, offers a wonderful variety of apples.

Apples require a certain crispy climate in order to thrive, and the mystery of Oak Glen is how a place surrounded by desert and not that high up in the hills could have such a different climate. On the Sunday we went, recently, a dark grey cloud was looming over the tops of the hills and, as we began a walk on the Los Rios Wildlands Conservancy trail, rain burst from one section of the sky and poured down on us. Yet the sun was shining and the sky was blue most everywhere we looked. The trail looked promising, though, so we hope to continue on it another day.

Meanwhile, down the road just a bit is the Oak Glen School House Museum, a tiny school with one classroom built in 1927 for the handful of children in Oak Glen. This charming stone building, surrounded by trees and grass (and sometimes bears that wander through) was in use until 1965, and apparently had only one teacher for all the grammar school grade levels of the children in attendance. The volunteer museum guide showed us around and shared some cute stories passed down by local families of children sneaking out of the detention room, or hiding the sauerkraut, which sometimes appeared in the school hot lunch, so they wouldn’t have to eat it. The most interesting artifacts to me were the “Rules for Teachers” posted on the walls. Prior to building the stone school, there was a little wooden school built in 1888 to service the community, and some of the rules posted date back to 1872. Some of the requirements for the one room schoolteacher read: “Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session. Women are forbidden to wear skirts slit to expose the ankles, men cannot have shirt sleeves ‘unlinked and rolled.’” Women teachers were also warned, “not to loiter downtown in ice cream stores” among other things. Perhaps even more eye opening is a copy of the 1899-1901 Eighth grade grammar school examination which asks students questions in physiology, geography, and several other subjects including the requests to: “Make a diagram of the stomach. Locate therein the openings into the stomach, and name them,” and “Name the countries of South America with the capital cities,” and “A note, face $250, interest 1 per cent, per month dated Nov. 1, 1898, due Sept. 10, 1899. Find bank discount on March 4, 1899, at 8 per cent per annum.” Makes you think.

The museum guide showed us the ground breaking indoor toilet with a rope to pull and flush, then rang the school bell for us as we left (and that’s a real bell, not the electronic timed ring schools have now.)

Back over at Los Rios, a small band was playing folk music as we checked out what apples were available in the store. Surprisingly, we didn’t encounter any honey, the natural companion to apples. In Julian there is an array of honeys which are naturally flavored by the flowers the bees collect pollen from. No local honey here, but there were some red delicious apples and very aromatic pears for sale. We then headed over to Snowline Orchards, which I had found in the past to be an excellent source for apples in terms of variety and quality. Even though we had come early in the season and not all the varieties were yet ready, Snowline did not disappoint. We gathered up bags of braeburn, macintosh, gravenstein, lura red, Ozark gold—the latter two were recommended to me for baking—and then we headed home.

So far I’ve baked two apple pies with streusel topping, a pear crisp, and some apple muffins. The macintosh are for eating straight and are crunchy and tart the way I remember from apple picking in Massachusetts.

Apple season is brief and can vary slightly depending on the weather, but when you get that vague sense that autumn is in the air, the apples are at their best. So whether it’s Julian or Oak Glen, please go and enjoy some California apples. You can even pick your own.

Notes:

The simplest directions to Oak Glen: take 10 E. to Oak Glen Rd. exit, drive into the hills
General information: www.oakglen.net
Snowline Orchards: 39400 Oak Glen Road Yucaipa, CA 92399, (909) 797-3415 snow-line.com, apples about $7 per big bag (call for availability)
Oak Glen School House Museum, 11911 S Oak Glen Rd., phone: 909-797-1691, open Sunday (except in Dec. or rainy days), admission free (donations welcome)
The Wildlands Conservancy at Los Rios Rancho, 39611 Oak Glen Rd., open Sunday 9am-4:30pm, admission free.

Is the Monterey Bay Aquarium really the best aquarium? It’s nearly a six hour drive from Los Angeles to find out, so one really has to wonder, considering that the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach is right down the road, if driving to another aquarium is worth an overnight trip. The question you have to ask yourself is: How much do I like fish?

Now that I think about it, most of the creatures we’re interested in seeing at the aquarium are not actually fish. We really enjoy all of the extraordinary creatures at any aquarium. It is amazing to observe the diversity of Creation.

The funny thing is, when we arrived in Monterey, everyone, even people at the aquarium, told us we had to do the “17 Mile Drive.” We did, but first things first.
Monterey is a quaint, ocean side town which has a lot of cute shops in the downtown area and along legendary Cannery Row. There is a wide variety of lodging available including hotels and motels, cottages with full kitchens (which is what we stayed in) and Victorian inns along Lighthouse Ave. While we visited during the off season, it was clear that Monterey really blossoms in the summer with bike and kayak rentals and the beach crowd—but for those of us who like to take a walk in sweater weather, winter is just right.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, situated at one end of Cannery Row, is the San Diego Zoo of marine life. There are many different environments to feature the various fish and aquatic creatures on display, including a lively otter tank and a rocky shore with simulated waves crashing over it. A glass dome makes it possible to stand under the crashing waves, and this is so entertaining it’s hard to pry everyone away to see the rest of the aquarium. Near the entrance to the aquarium are electronic information boards listing the feeding times for some of the major exhibits including the giant kelp forest and the penguins. All the “feeding shows” are made informative by knowledgeable guides who share facts about the animals and take questions from the moderately sized audiences. One interesting item we learned about the penguin exhibit is that some of the penguins are actually guests from an aquarium in New Orleans, which was evacuated due to hurricane Katrina.

What’s particularly impressive about the Monterey Aquarium is the excellent condition everything is in, including interactive areas for small children. Virtually everything is in pristine, working order and the atmosphere is open and comfortable.

For those who like to pet the tiny sea creatures there are touch tanks with starfish, rays, anemones and crabs. Other favorite exhibits were the orange octopus, which happened to be clinging to the glass so we could get a good look at him, and the strange giant swimming pancake called the sunfish. Perhaps the most unusual exhibit is “Jellies: Living Art.” With lighting, frames and mirrors, a variety of jellyfish are displayed, just being themselves, but with all kinds of artistic enhancements to their surroundings to showcase their curious beauty. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Having been to the Boston aquarium, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and the Long Beach aquarium, I think the Monterey Aquarium is the best for overall appeal. While Monterey doesn’t have any of the large mammals i.e., dolphins and sea lions, as some of the other aquariums do, Monterey successfully displays the fish and animals it does have in a clean and contemporary setting.

After seeing everything we could at the aquarium, we headed out to the 17 Mile Drive, hoping to take the tour before sunset. We stopped for directions twice before finding the entrance, paid the $8 to drive down the private road through sparkling green forests, enormous estates, and the Pebble Beach golf course to stop at several different lookout points along the ocean shore. Fortunately, we had binoculars with us to have a better look at the wildlife, and a camera to capture one beautiful image after the next. What sounded like kind of a nap—“17 Mile Drive—zzzzz….” turned out to be a very memorable part of the trip.

It seems like an obvious travel tip, but it bears repeating: ask the locals what sights are worth visiting. Ask the other tourists, too. One of the families we spoke to at the aquarium was from our community right here in LA. They also recommended the 17 Mile drive. Thanks for the tip.

Notes:
Monterey Bay Aquarium, 886 Cannery Row, Monterey, California 93940,
phone: 831-548-4888, http://www.mbayaq.org/vi/ admission: Adult $21.95, Senior (65+) $19.95, Student (13 thru 17 or college ID) $19.95, Child (3 thru 12) $12.95, Child (Under 3) Free, Disabled $12.95

17 Mile Drive, Pebble Beach, CA 93953 car entry: $8.