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With the Fair opening shortly in September, I thought it fitting to write about one of the Fairplexs great exhibits....Ever since I was a kid I would spend hours walking around, standing or dreaming about building a model railroad just like this....I would eventually build several models, the last one in 2005, and it is strictly an indoor set....But I never got around to designing my dream garden rail road....Fortunally, the Fairplex Garden railroad, after several years of neglect in the 70's has been fully restored and I can still dream on.

What follows is the History of the Fairplex Garden Railroad History
The railroad began in 1924 by the founder Mr. Hennan Howard and his brother who were members of the Pomona Model Yacht Club......A single Pacific Electric Railway 1200 interurban model ran around the Army Corps of Engineers' Puddingstone Reservoir Exhibit during that year's Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona......The train model was supposed to promote the dam, which had just been built, but onlookers could care less about the dam....They were more interested in the train.....The exhibit later was moved to a tent, and in 1935 to its outdoor location.....The railroad was sold in 1958 to Mr. & Mrs. Herman Templin.....After the death of Mr. Templin, just before the fair opened in 1968, Mrs. Templin, with the help of her daughter Suzanne and Mr. John Huie, kept the railroad running, but could not fix bridges that were cracked by years of weather and abuse, nor lay new track to replace sections ripped out for one reason or another.....In 1970, the Los Angeles County Fair took ownership of the railroad, and Mr. John Huie, under an agreement with fair management, kept the railroad maintained and running through 1996.

The Day My Church Blew Down.....

Well when I was a kid growing up in Upland, my family were members of the Presbyterian Church, located on Euclid just north of 11 th street.....And one of the stories that always came up when the Santa Ana's blew was how our first church blew down....Not just the steeple mind you....The whole church was flattened like a pancake.....In fact almost every building in Upland was blown down.

But back then, certain groups of people were trying to get people to move out here so they never mentioned the winds, or the above normal rainfall nor even the times we got snow....In fact if a story was sent in about how cold it was in Upland that story was killed real fast....The Inland Empire had no more zealous champion of its reputation as a land of milk and honey in the 1890s than the area's newspapers.

Well at least a couple of them.....

Ricky Adams, Was a Major League Baseball pitcher.....This can't be the same Ricky Adams I knew....He died while swimming off of Malibu back in the 70's....Ricky Adams was born on Wednesday, January 21, 1959, in Upland, California.....Adams was 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on September 15, 1982, with the California Angels.....He retired from baseball in 1985 after playing for one year with the San Francisco Giants.

Kevin Ara, Professional soccer player; Ara played his college soccer at Harvard University, where he had a rather distinguished career.....While at Harvard, he was named first team All-Ivy twice, second team once, was named first team All-New England twice and an NCAA All-American.....Ara was placed on the short list of finalists for the prestigious Herman Trophy during his senior season.....After graduating from Harvard, Ara was selected 24th overall in the 2004 MLS SuperDraft.....Ara, managed to make an impact and earned significant playing time during his 2004 rookie season while winning a championship with DC United.....After the 2004 season, Ara was selected 18th overall by Real Salt Lake in the Expansion Draft.....Kevin was born in Upland in 1982

Don't even think about messing with Dave Prak and Jonny Depp, even if Depp is a two-dimensional cardboard picture.....Prak, a resident of Upland stars in the two "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels......He is seen often in "Pirates of the Caribbean 3, At World's End" as a member of Chow Yun-Fat's pirate crew, following up on a role as a cannibal in the second "Pirates" movie......Before that? He Worked at Wal Mart..

The Upland man was a salesman in the pet department for more than two years before leaving quietly in 2005 to pursue acting full-time.....He kept quiet about his acting gigs because he wasn't sure how anti-union Wal-Mart would feel about his Screen Actors Guild membership.....He was afraid that Wal Mart, one of the worlds largest Non Union employers, would fire him as soon as he divulged his acting aspirations.

It was just the Quakes Celebrating after a pounding vistory.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA - The Quakes won their third straight game Sunday afternoon even though their road to the 5-4 victory over the Visalia Oaks wasn't the smoothest.

Second baseman Nate Sutton scored the winning run after he opened the bottom of the ninth with a double off the left-field wall, missing a home run by a couple of feet. He advanced to third on Hainley Statia's sacrifice and, after Cliff Remole was intentionally walked, scored when Jordan Renz hit a high bouncing ball to the shortstop who threw to second for a force but was unable to get Renz at first.

Sutton had three hits and a walk, while designated hitter Pat Reilly tied the game with a two-run triple to center field in the last of the eighth.

Darren O'Day, the Quakes closer who has eight saves, got two outs in the ninth and improved his record to 2-0.

The Quakes squared their record at 22-22 and kept pace with the leaders in the Southern Division of the California League, staying one game behind a three-way tie for first between the 66ers, Lancaster and Lake Elsinore.

"I think we've had more like this weekend and it was good to get back home after being on the road in Bakersfield and Lake Elsinore," Quakes manager Bobby
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Mitchell said. "Reilly and Sutton are starting to swing the bats better and we need them to hit. They were both here last year and are the core of our offense."

The Quakes missed an opportunity to win in the eighth inning with Reilly on third base with the go-ahead run. Pinch-hitter Brad Coon was walked intentionally, but was picked off first base by losing pitcher Dan Stange.

Coon moved toward second and Reilly tried to score in the rundown when Oaks first baseman Bryan Byrne ran Coon toward second.

However, Coon pumped his arm and faked the throw. Reilly tried to run home, and things turned into Murphy's Law for the Quakes with everything going wrong.

Byrne ran to tag chase Reilly, who was hung up between third and home. Reilly slipped running toward home and was tagged out so quickly that he wasn't able to stay in the rundown long enough so that Coon could only go to second base.

"Coon was on his own and I think he was a little anxious to make something happen," Mitchell said of Coon, who had been successful in 20 of 25 stolen base attempts but had missed the previous three games with a heel injury. "He's an aggressive base runner and he's better than that."

"There's a small window where you can go for home when he pumped his arm, but when I went I slipped," Reilly said. The misstep came on what was a successful weekend for the former University of Arizona standout.

On Friday, Reilly hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth off Stange to defeat Visalia.

"When I faced him the other night, he came after me with fastballs and the one pitch he threw to me today was a fastball," said Reilly. "I'll go out on a limb and say he won't come after me with fastballs."

66ers 4, Modesto 2

Starting pitcher Javy Guerra scattered four hits over six innings as the Sixers avoided a three-game sweep on the road.

The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians has called the Temecula valley home for more than 10,000 years......According to tribal elders, life on earth began in this valley, called Exva Temeeku, the place where the sun, the earth, sky all met to create the people known as the Perchanga, or in there tongue, Temeekuyam.....10,000 years from now, tribal elders believe, that they will still be here, after all of us are gone, and that they will continue to share with the tribal youth as they do today the story of the tribe's creation.

The history of Pechanga begins with their ancestral home village of Temeeku.....Now burried under the Redhawk river, (where Margarita road cuts south through a bluff), the Temeeku Village was home to the Temeekuyam and a center for all Luiseño Tribal peoples.