The ZIP map is worth having in front of you, because San Bernardino is a city of distinct pockets rather than one continuous grid, and several of those pockets are not technically in the city at all. 92401 is downtown, around the county buildings, the 1918 Santa Fe Depot on West Third Street, the California Theatre on West Fourth and San Manuel Stadium on South E Street. 92404 runs east from Waterman through Del Rosa and Arrowhead Suburban Farms — older ranch-and-tract housing, mature citrus, deep lots, the easiest routing anywhere here and minutes from the East Highland bench. 92405 is the centroid: Shandin Hills and Little Mountain on the slope above the 215, plus the stretch of Highland where the first bench sits. 92407 is the northwest — Verdemont out past Palm Avenue, Northpark, the University District along Kendall Drive below Cal State San Bernardino, and the newer hillside tracts, some gated. 92408 is south, Tri-City and Hospitality Lane and the airport corridor. 92410 is central-west along the Mount Vernon corridor, the original Route 66 alignment through town, where Mitla Cafe has been at 602 North Mt. Vernon since 1937 and the original McDonald's site still stands on North E Street. 92411 is the Westside. Unincorporated Muscoy sits north of Highland with long driveways and rural-route addressing. Then the ring: Highland 92346, Colton 92324, Grand Terrace 92313, Loma Linda 92354, Redlands 92373 and 92374, Mentone 92359, Rialto 92376 and 92377, Bloomington 92316, Fontana 92335, 92336 and 92337. And upward by SR-18 and SR-330: Crestline 92325, Blue Jay 92317, Lake Arrowhead 92352, Skyforest and Running Springs 92382.
Who receives a just-because bouquet here is mostly not who you would guess from the hotel-and-restaurant pages. It is a grandmother in Muscoy or on the Westside who does not get flowers on any particular day. It is a school office — San Bernardino City Unified School District is one of California's largest, with administration at 777 North F Street and campuses spread across every ZIP above, and a thank-you arrangement to a front office or a staff room is one of the steadiest orders on this grid, along with Cal State San Bernardino at 5500 University Parkway and San Bernardino Valley College at 701 South Mt. Vernon Avenue. It is a nursing station at St. Bernardine on North Waterman or Arrowhead Regional in Colton, sent by a family weeks after a discharge, addressed to a unit rather than a person. It is a county counter — San Bernardino is the seat of the largest county by area in the contiguous United States, and the County Government Center at 385 North Arrowhead Avenue and the Justice Center at 247 West Third Street hold thousands of desks within a few blocks. It is a crew at a Stater Bros. store, or the office at the company's headquarters and distribution operation on South Tippecanoe Avenue, or a warehouse breakroom along the 10 in Rialto and Fontana. And it is a neighbor two doors down, which is the order this whole category exists for.