Sweetwater Station & The Oregon Trail

While traveling on Highway 287 in Wyoming, Lil Dude stopped at the Sweetwater Station Rest Stop and was very pleasantly surprised at the very clean restrooms. Compared to other rest area's across the great American nation, this must be in the top ten for cleanliness!

Four historical trails pass through the area of Sweetwater Station - the Oregon, Mormon Pioneer, California, and Pony Express. The landscape looks almost exactly the same as it did almost 200 years ago when pioneers were traveling west by horse, covered wagons, and on foot. The trails were so worn that even today there are still miles of visible paths and ruts.

Miles & miles of wagon train ruts. Thousands of feet
walked this path.

This is the same landscape the pioneers saw as they
made the dangerous trek westward.

Reagan Presidential Library

One room in the library contains busts of every U.S. President

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is located in Simi Valley, California. Lil Dude Troll visited and found it to be a lot more interesting than you think and gives it 2 thumbs up!

Lil Dude taking a horse ride with President Reagan

Reagan's Air Force One

Lil Dude inspecting the wheels of Air Force One

Riding on President Reagan's limo

The Gipper!

President Reagan's Marine One helecopter

Reagan & Gorbachev at Reykjavik Summit

A section of the Berlin Wall

One of the motorcycles ridden by a police escort during Reagan's funeral

Santa Monica - The End Of Route 66

Lil Dude Troll on the Santa Monica Beach

 After beginning an epic Route 66 road trip in Chicago, the Troll family and their traveling friend Eeyore made it to the end of the Mother Road in Santa Monica. A bucket list item has now been checked off and a life-time of good memories made.


Check out the full blog entry on our sister site 1dustytrack.blogspot.com.

Monet Troll on the Santa Monica Beach

Earth Troll on the Santa Monica Beach

The Troll Family's good friend, Traveling Eeyore made
the whole trip with them.

At the end of the Santa Monica Pier - as far as you can go
without getting wet!

At the Mariasol Restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier

Lunch of yummy Mariasol Mexican food

Lil Dude Troll on the Santa Monica Pier

Across the freeway in the Santa Monica hills
overlooking the pier and beach

Play time is over Lil Dude. Time to head back home.

Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch

Can you find Lil Dude Troll?

 Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch at 24266 National Trails Highway (Route 66) in Oro Grande, California is a must stop for travelers of the Mother Road. When you arrive, you know immediately you have arrived at some place different, a special place built and assembled by some special person.

Pull off the road and park on the narrow dirt strip in front of the "ranch." Bottles and a lot of odd, old stuff is everywhere. But this is not like a normal junk yard; this is an interesting, weirdly artful junk yard - bottle trees everywhere you look; typewriters, cash registers, wrist watches, galvanized tubs all arranged with various colored bottles to form what I guess would be called modern art or perhaps interpretive art would be a better name for it. Not hundreds of bottles, thousands and thousands of bottles. It's weird and it's interesting and you will have a great time just wondering around the place.

Elmer has spent a lot, a whole lot of time putting his
bottle tree ranch together

Elmer Long is the artist behind the Bottle Ranch. He used to go with his dad out into the desert and collect the objects they found, including many, many bottles. After his father passed away, Elmer was left with all of these bottles and other objects with no idea what to do with them. He finally decided to craft a bottle tree and in the year 2000 when he was finished, he liked the way the light shown through the bottles and the melody the wind created as it flowed over them so much that he decided to make another one. He hasn't stopped yet and now there are more than 200 "trees."

Check out the full blog entry on our sister site 1dustytrack.blogspot.com.

Lil Dude has plenty of time on his hands.

The Mother Taco of Taco Bell

In 1940, two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald, opened a small eatery called McDonalds Bar-B-Que in San Bernardino. In addition to bar-b-que, they sold hamburgers. Eight years later, they were selling more hamburgers than plates of bar-b-que so they decided to revamp their restaurant and feature hamburgers as the main menu item. Since they would no longer be serving bar-b-que, they renamed their business to simply McDonalds. In 1954, milk shake mixer salesman Ray Croc came calling and was mightily impressed with the efficiency of the system the McDonalds brothers had designed.  He bought the business a year later, began franchising it, and the McDonalds chain of fast food restaurants was born.

Lil Dude in front of the Mitla Cafe at
602 N. Mt. Vernon, San Bernardino

Glen Bell, Jr. was born in 1923 and honorably served as a Marine in World War II. After being discharged in 1946, he settled in San Bernardino and in 1948 opened a hot dog stand he named Bell's Drive-In. In 1950, he sold his hot dog stand and opened another stand selling hot dogs and hamburgers - Bell's Hot Dogs and Hamburgers. His new place of business was in the West Side barrio of San Bernardino directly across the street from The Mitla Cafe, a Mexican restaurant that had been in business since 1937. The main item the Mitla Cafe was and is still famous for are their hard-shell taco's. Bell fell in love with them. After eating the tacos, he would go back to his place where he tried to figure out how to make them the way they were made at the Mitla Cafe. Try as he might though, the right combination of herbs and spices eluded him. Finally, in desperation, he began asking the owners of Mitla to teach him their secret.

A short time later, Bell began selling tacos through a side window of his business. The tacos proved so popular that between 1954 and 1955, he opened 3 Taco Tias stands. He took on a business partner, sold the 3 Taco Tias stands and opened 4 El Tacos stands in Long Beach.

Not in the safest part of town, chains and bars protect
the premises at night after closing

By 1962, the chain of McDonalds was proving to be very popular and they were opening up all over the place.  With McDonalds' continued growth right there at his back door, Bell decided they were too much competition and sold his hamburger place. He then sold his share of the 4 El Tacos to his partner and focused exclusively on selling tacos with his new place - Taco Bell. He franchised his business in 1964 and eventually sold 868 Taco Bells to PepsiCo in 1978 for $125 million. Today, the company is based in Irvine, California and has almost 7,000 locations which sell more than 2 billion tacos each year.

Check out the full blog entry at our sister site 1dustytrack.blogspot.com.