California Citrus State Historic Park

 “You know,” Laureen said, “It would be nice to have some fresh orange juice for breakfast.”

I nodded. “And I know just the place.”

In a little over an hour, we were at the California Citrus State Historic Park, in Riverside.

One of the paths through a citrus grove at the park

“Stater Brothers would have worked; it was closer to home,” my thoughtful spouse remarked.

“Yes, but you wanted fresh oranges and here we are,” I replied.

Hundreds and hundreds of green-leafed trees budding with voluptuous oranges beckoned us to pick them. We would have our fill with the vitamin C fruits. 

The Ranger at the small toll gate smiled and told us we could not use drones over the vast fields of orange trees.

“No flying drones, got it,” I replied.

“Also, you can not pick any of the oranges in the park.”

“Isn’t this an orange park with a lot of oranges?” I asked.

“It is a state historical park, no picking of the fruit,” she said.

“Are the oranges historical?”

Both Laureen and the Ranger rolled their eyes at me. 

An orange tree park where a visitor can not imbibe on such a delicious snack as an orange seemed odd to me.

‘Welcome to San Onofre State Beach, where no swimming, boating, or fishing is allowed.’ 

‘Welcome to Heart Bar State Park, where no hiking or camping is allowed.’

Research indicated that under California Code Regulations, Title 14 (a) – no person shall willfully or negligently pick, dig up, cut, mutilate, destroy, injure, or do any other bad stuff to any tree, plant, or portion of. . . 

Okay, so we would not pick any fruit. It was still a beautiful location to spend an early morning walking through the groves and just taking in nature at its best.

I grew up in Riverside. Did not leave until my third decade on this revolving ball we call Earth. Return visits were many to visit family, but those visits became less and less frequent as family became smaller through the years.

Having spent a lot of time riding horses through the vastness of orange tree tracts with my school friend, Michael, this visit brought back great memories. Galloping here and there up and down Victoria Avenue throwing clods of dirt into the air was a lot of fun. Unless an errant orange tree branch would remove me from the saddle, which took the fun away rather quickly.

John R Beyer enjoying a respite at the citrus park

Oranges were a citrus gold rush for the early settlers in Riverside. In fact, it is this city beside the Santa Ana River which started the citrus bonanza in the state of California. 

In 1871, Eliza Tibbets had received three Brazilian navel orange trees from a friend of hers, William Saunders. Turned out, Saunders worked for the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C., and he believed the citrus would grow well in the semi-arid climate for which Riverside is known.

His assumption was correct, and the trees took off like a wildfire. No, that would have destroyed them. Instead, the Brazilian orange trees grew very well and very rapidly.

It was rumored that Saunders was so thrilled, that he danced the Bumba Meu Boi while sipping on a Caipirinha at the same time.

Of the original three trees, two survived and were transplanted from Tibbet’s property to a safer location at Sam McCoy’s, who would watch over them a bit more carefully. A cow stomped on one of the three trees killing it while under Tibbet’s care.

Talk about freshly squeezed.

The two remaining survivors of the infamous cow stampede were transplanted again, one at the Mission Inn and the other at the intersection of Magnolia and Arlington avenues.

President Theodore Roosevelt paid homage to the tree at the Mission Inn during a visit to Riverside in 1903. It is rumored he plucked a big fat juicy orange and ate it right there on the flagstone patio.

That tree died in 1922, but the last of the three trees is still growing strong at the intersection of Magnolia and Arlington. Though there is a large fence around it to keep people from being tempted to eat the oranges which grow in bushels upon its branches.

Oranges were such a huge financial success that by 1882, of the more than a half million citrus trees in the state of California, half were in Riverside. With the vast improvement in refrigerated railroad cars during the 1880s, growers had the chance to transport the citrus eastward, and Riverside became the richest city, per capita, in the United States by 1895.

Within the visitor center at the California Citrus State Historic Park is a large museum which has a plethora of information from the beginning to the current day dealing with this business of citrus. There are models of packing houses, wooden crates, photographs of the original complexes, photographs of people who worked the groves – along with their personal stories, a detailed history of the orange industry, farm implements, and much more for the curious citrus history visitor.

The visitor center at the California Citrus State Historic Park

Just some of the farming equipment on display

One of a few pagodas in the park

Venue center at the California Citrus State Historic Park

Some of the history is not too kind for some of the folks residing and working in the area during the boom of the citrus industry. 

Before there was a Riverside County, the lands were the homes to the Native American tribes, Serrano, Luiseno, Cahuilla, Cupeno, and others. When the citrus industry started, many of these natives worked for the growers but due to government policies and racial prejudices the workforce declined causing harsh living conditions for the natives. In 1903, with the Sherman Indian Institute coming into existence in Riverside, a new work program allowed students to return working for the growers, which they did as late as the 1930s. Though the students were working, they were working in poor conditions and for very little pay. What seemed like a good idea at the time only provided cheap labor for a large money-making industry.

Chinese immigrants were employed when the Native American workforce dwindled, and by 1885 nearly eighty percent of the workers were Chinese. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 finally reached its ugly head in the Riverside area and suddenly the Chinese workers were no longer wanted. In came the Japanese immigrants who, by 1900, made up most of all workers in the groves. But again, local resentment of the Asian immigrants made their numbers fall to a low in 1920, when Hispanic immigrants moved in and took up the slack of workers.

Like all history, there is good and there is bad – thus there is a need to study it and the museum does a wonderful service explaining the importance and how dependent the industry was on all the various peoples who built such an agricultural phenomenon. 

Some of the stories a visitor will learn are heart breaking but at the same time those stories express tales of such strong-willed individuals. These folks toiled day in and day out to make America what it is today. They were incredible people.

It is always worth remembering and appreciating their personal sacrifices.

With well over two hundred acres of land to wander over, there is a lot to see, and it is not just oranges that grow within the park grounds. Nope, there are grapefruit, lemons, and avocados growing everywhere. And there are special types of citrus and other plants along the exterior walking paths which would pique the interest of any serious botanist.

There are also some plants with rather unusual and intriguing names: the Australian Finger Lime, the Sticky Monkey Flower, the Mulefat, the Royal Beard Tongue, and many more to marvel at during a leisurely stroll. Though, I’m not sure any should be touched, no matter what the California laws dictate about doing so, but with names like those, who knows what could happen.

I do recall Harry Potter and the rather poisonous Pomona Sprout’s Garden. Don’t want to be accidently turned into a newt, now do we?

An original growers abode

Laureen and I walked around enjoying the smell of citrus in the air. A long walk to a high hilled view of the park and the entire city of Riverside, with the San Gabriel Mountains to the north. We sat beneath beautiful pagodas. Marveled at how great it would be as a wedding venue or corporate event. Wandered through groves of citrus. The entire experience was relaxing.

Beautiful views of the mountains from the park

We ended at the Gage canal, named after Matthew Gage, who in 1885 started construction on a twelve-mile water canal bringing water to the groves which was completed in 1889.

A section of the Gage Canal

My friend, Michael started working at the Gage Canal Company while in high school. He climbed the corporate ladder, finally becoming a big mucky muck. I remember accompanying him, many times on horseback, riding through the groves when he did that or did this along the miles of canal – it was so quiet and serene out there among the trees. And I remember the smell of the smudge pots during cold winter nights.

I have told Laureen and my children of those memories. They smile and nod their heads – they are good like that. But when I visited the California Citrus State Historic Park, personal memories of my childhood in Riverside flooded back – and it was nice.

For further information - https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=649

A Grand Canyon

 President Theodore Roosevelt first visited northern Arizona in 1903. And what he saw impressed this world traveler, and he’d seen some pretty interesting things in his life. He was looking at the Grand Canyon, and marveled at this long curving geologic wonder. The canyon wounds its way 277 miles through the high desert of Arizona, reaching sometimes a width of 18 miles, and nearly one mile deep in some spots.

Truly an awesome sight to behold.

“Humph, that is one grand canyon,” the President stated.

A guide nodded, “Mr. President, it is known as the Grand Canyon, after all.”

“Bully – simply bully.”

The president was so impressed at what he was seeing, he declared the area a national game preserve on November 28, 1906. But that declaration turned out not going far enough to protect all the wildlife that resided in the canyon. On January 11, 1908, Roosevelt declared the Grand Canyon a U.S. National Monument. 

According to the National Parks Conservation Association, ‘national monuments are nationally significant lands and waters set aside for permanent protection’.

The rough riding president surely loved the outdoors, and with the creation of the Antiquities Act in 1906, he was busy setting aside federal lands right and left and left to right. The 26th President created 18 such U.S. National Monuments.

From the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming in 1906 – made ever so famous in the film, Close Encounters of Third Kind, to his last one in 1908, a portion of the Rio Grande National Forest in Colorado – also made more famous by the beautiful outdoor scenes in the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

But, the Grand Canyon is GRAND! It’s rugged, raw, romantic, scenic, and just plain cool to experience. Anyone who will see the Grand Canyon for the first time is apt to state the following – “That can’t be real. It must be a painting or photograph. I think I’ll just walk out into midair and prove it’s not real.” 

The Grand Canyon - no place to take a step off a cliff

On one trip to the Grand Canyon, I purchased the book, Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon, by Michael P. Ghiglieri. In it are lots of stories of people doing dumb and risky things near the edge of the canyon.

Unfortunately, most end in tragedy. A person taking a selfie and forgetting that one too many steps backwards will be their last selfie. People ignoring safety fences along the edge of the canyon – and their last words are, “Precaution signs are for wimps, yiiiiiikkkkkeeeesssss!”

No, the canyon is indescribably majestic, but it is a place that respect to Mother Nature must be in the forefront for any visitor.

So, when Laureen and I boarded our train ride to the south rim of the Grand Canyon from Williams, Arizona, we listened to our PSA – Passenger Service Attendant. 

“Welcome aboard, I’m your PSA for the trip to and from the Grand Canyon,” stated Dee, our PSA.

Sounds so snobby. 

We were in the Luxury Dome car – the two story one, with the plushy roomy seats and large rounded glass windows, so we wouldn’t miss anything outside passing by. Below us was the lounge car, with even roomier and plushier seats. 

Actually, any seat on the train has awesome views

Anyway, Dee, was telling us about what was open for eating, shopping and all the other things to do once we reached the south rim of the Grand Canyon. “Pretty much everything is open, but if you want a lunch at the Tovar Hotel in the Grand Canyon Village, the wait may be long.”

We didn’t care about lunch, we came prepared with enough snacks and sandwiches that we could have gotten lost in the canyon itself for two months and never missed a meal.

Laureen’s motto – why pack light when heavier is better. Of course, I was the designated Sherpa for the trip.

“We’re not spending a week in the wild you know,” I stated, just before clambering aboard our train car. I could only clamber, since I had a satchel the size of Montana hanging across my shoulders.

“Oh, it’s not that heavy,” Laureen said, as she bounded up the steps of the train. I’ll leave it at that.

One of the things stressed is safety at all times while visiting the Grand Canyon. Especially, at the time of year we visited. It had snowed the previous evening, and through the night in Williams and the sidewalks were icy. I could just imagine what the trails around the south rim would be like when we arrived about mid-morning.

“The trails may be icy and caution must be taken. One slip, and it’s a long way down to the bottom,” Dee warned us.

The canyon was created, per the geologists, by the Colorado River, and its tributaries, eroding away at the ground for the past five or six million years. Through those eons, the erosion has ended up painting a geologic timeline for the earth.

One walkway, along the rim, is referred to as the Trail of Time. Every yard or so, is a marker depicting a certain time during the earths creation. 

Every few steps is a geologic history lesson

According to the National Park Service, ‘The Trail of Time is an interpretive walking timeline that focuses on Grand Canyon vistas and rocks and invites visitors to ponder, explore, and understand the magnitude of geologic time and the stories encoded by Grand Canyon rock layers and landscapes.’

In layman’s terms – you can learn a lot walking that path and reading the descriptions of what has been uncovered during the millions of years that it took to create the Grand Canyon. The age of the various strata in the canyon can range anywhere from 200 million to 2 billion years in age.

That’s a lot of eons.

Taking a train is a very leisurely thing to do. No driving, no worrying about directions, and no unnecessary distractions. Sit back, relax, and take the time to look out the windows and enjoy the natural wonders slipping by.

Elk, deer, porcupines were just some of the wildlife we saw on the trip.

Dee made sure that we had an early morning snack, actually a breakfast, and if one so desired – a grown up beverage could be purchased.

“Yeah, all I need is a Bloody Mary, and then I’ll be slipping and sliding down the canyon with this anchor around my neck.”

“It’s not that heavy,” Laureen stated. 

Another thing about taking the train is that you meet interesting people. We met a couple of fellow travelers, Craig and Jenn from San Diego. They were out and about, and made the trip to the Grand Canyon on a just a whim.

“We had some time off, and thought we would visit Williams and then the canyon,” Jenn stated.

“Traveling, we just really enjoy the adventure and meeting new people,” Craig replied.

I could not have agreed more.

Craig, was nice enough to shoot this for us

Dee was accurate when we reached the south rim. Freshly fallen snow from the previous night had left really slick and icy walkways.

Wearing hiking boots, I knew there would be no slipping or sliding with this guy. Oh, how wrong one can be.

Walking from the train depot at the south rim, I felt like a poor try-out for an Olympic ice skating team. My left foot went right and my right foot went left.

“You okay?” Laureen asked.

“Dandy, just practicing some moves I saw on YouTube the other day.”

The sky was clear and blue. The weather, a bit chilly as we wandered the village with the ever present gorgeous view of the canyon to the east. 

Weather was cold, but the views outstanding

We did some short hikes and wanted to utilize the Bright Angel trail, but after seeing a few people fall and slide down the non-roped path, we decided to ‘just say no’.

“That guy nearly went airborne,” I stated, after seeing a woman grab onto a man, stopping him from flying into the canyon.

“He’s wearing flip-flops,” Laureen replied.

Wonder what chapter he’ll be in Ghiglieri’s next book?

Be careful on the trail during winter - it's mighty slippery

The best time to visit the Grand Canyon? Anytime, is what I would say, but according to Bill, who works the train ticket office in Williams, “I’d say fall, less people and the changing of the colors are beautiful. Winter, the least traveled time due to the weather. Yeah, fall would be my choice. But, every season here is worth seeing.”

Bill could not have said it better, and it surely is a Grand Canyon.

Spend some time and visit the unique buildings on the rim