10/14/14 - Last Miles of Route 66

We started today where we ended yesterday, in the small restaurant next to our motel. It had just opened a few days before and the motel manager told us that it was good. We agree with him.   Both dinner and breakfast were great!  Our food was tasty and well presented.  This is a new establishment so they are still working out portion size and procedures, but the food was good and the staff were friendly.

We headed out to cross the mountains and entered the Los Angeles Basin.  Our first road was Foothills Boulevard.  We followed it to Rialto and the iconic concrete teepees. We switched to Colorado Boulevard and looked for a shiny red super stocked dodge, but did not see any.  I did see my first Fiskas Karma; a very nice looking car.  We traveled by the Santa Anita Race track and it seemed much bigger then I thought it was.  As we continued on into Beverley Hills the number of Teslas, Porsches and Aston Martins increase to the point that they weren't rare sightings. At one point we were going from light to light with a group of 3 Teslas, 2 Porsches, 1 Aston Martin, 2 Prius, and a our 66 T-Bird. LA traffic lives up to its reputation.  It took us about 3 hours to go 45 miles on LA  main streets.  These are 4 and 6 lane boulevards.  I won't complain about  Portland traffic again! 

We finally crossed over the bridge and parked on the Santa Monica Pier; the end point of Route 66. After presenting documentation to prove that we had driven the entire length of Route 66, and donating $10.00 each to the National Historic Route 66 Federation we received our certificates and had our picture taken.

We celebrated with lunch at Bubba Gump's, walked the Pier and talked to a couple from Australia that had also finished Route 66 the day before.  They were driving up the coast to San Francisco and then flying home.  We explained the joke we had heard putting tourists into two groups; about the newly wed and almost dead.  The  man agreed that people travel when they get older and so does he.  He has lost three friends in the last year that were fine the year before.  He said he is "not putting off any trips, because you never know when you could go."  I'm guessing he didn't mean go to Disneyland.

When we got back to the Route 66 end point a group from England asked if we were driving  the Thunderbird.   They said they have a son with Type One diabetes and they also collect donations for JDRF in England, at car shows and cruise in's.  I went got the T-Bird and parked it in the road so we could get their picture in front of it.

After taking pictures with everyone's cameras, we said our goodbyes and set our GPS for San Diego and headed south toward Bob and Deb's.