The hook
You can still sleep in a concrete teepee on Route 66 in Rialto, one of the last three survivors of a lost roadside chain and the model for a Pixar movie.
01Why it's worth it
Between 1933 and 1949 a man named Frank Redford built a small chain of Wigwam Villages, motor courts where each room was a thirty-foot concrete teepee ringed around an office, and the one in Rialto, Village #7, opened in 1949 as the last of them. Only three still stand, two of them on Route 66, and this is the western one. It fell on hard times, then a family who had immigrated from India bought it in 2002, restored the teepees and the old neon, and got it onto the National Register in 2012. If the cone-shaped Cozy Cone Motel in Cars looked familiar, this is why: the Wigwams were the inspiration. You can stop and photograph it, or book a teepee for the night, which is the better story.
02How to experience it
It's on West Foothill Boulevard, the old Route 66 alignment, in Rialto, about seven hours from the Bay. It's a working motel, so be respectful of guests if you're only there for photos; the neon looks best after dark. It's a natural stop on any Route 66 run through the Inland Empire.