Beginning at the end of the road

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08/04/07 - Beginning at the end of the road

The Ambrose Hotel in Santa Monica dropped us at Avis - the only car hire place open on Easter Sunday it seemed and quite possibly the nearest car hire to the junction of Ocean and Santa Monica Boulevards, the official end of the historical route 66. We snapped the required photos of the Will Rogers highway plaque in Palisades Park and Santa Monica pier and then headed up Santa Monica Boulevard and into Sunset Boulevard for our last glimpse of the Hollywood sign on the hill.

I was excited to see that our hire car turned out to be a Pontiac, being a make of car I’ve never driven and not so excited to see that it was pearly ivory white. Oh well - 28 days of road including a few of desert should wipe that gleaming smile of its face. I also noted the gauges in mph for the first time in a long while and the luminous red dials and needles on the dashboard.

Route 66 purists please look away. We sneaked off the official route for a few miles between Pasadena and La Verne onto the freeway so we could cover some distance to head out of LA before it was dark. But hey, we were hardly being pure to the official route 66 drive seeing as we were doing the whole thing backwards anyhow.

Back onto Foothill blvd, we were definitely back on track with route 66 signs everywhere, including one at the ‘classic McDonalds, and the Route 66 signed attraction, the Aladdin Inn.

In Upland we parked up for a photo of the Madonna of the trail, a monument to the woman pioneers at the end of the Old National Trails Highway. The monument turned out to be in the center of the two carriageways of the road so we received many odd looks standing there with our cameras.

As it was 7pm and getting dark we started scouring the roadside for motels for our first night. The Rose Motel, Desert Motel and Oasis Motel all looked on the slightly seedy side so we opted for the clean looking Travel Inn, Fontana instead - (Fontana being the official birthplace of the Hell’s Angels biker club). Ok, so we should have been pulling in to the carpark on gleaming Harleys but lacking both the bike and my motorbike license instead I backed our white Pontiac sedan into the space of room 101, (another famous Californian Road number). Only 67 miles of the famous 2250. Our road trip had begun.

09/04/07 We left Fontana and headed East on a very overcast day. Looking at our route 66 guide and road map, we soon decided on another huge detour from the official route, rounding highway 18 into Big Bear and back to Victorville via Apple Valley. The road climbed up through the cloud until we finally appeared in bright sunshine looking down over a valley of cloud as far as we could see. We made Big Bear our lunch stop and wandered around the shops and along the lakeside. Sitting in the tranquility of Big Bear, it’s hard to believe that you’re so close to the craziness of LA surrounded by log buildings and Pine forest and the shimmering blue water. All too quickly the scenery changes back to barren desert as the road drops down to Apple Valley and Victorville, picking up Route 66 once more. We made it as far as Barstow, before we decided to rest for the night. Where else could we stay but the Route 66 Motel, with its classic neon sign, courtyard of old road signs and classic cars and the finishing touch in the rooms - round beds!

10/04/07 By now, we realized that our route 66 trip to Chicago was gonna be a case of following the route, only when we weren’t heading off to major attractions that we wanted to visit. We headed North from Baker, CA after snapping another roadside attraction, the world’s largest thermometer outside the Bun Boy restaurant. Our lunch stop was in Shoshone, which we had to ask how to pronounce properly. Not as in Shoe-shone but as in Shoe-show-knee, the Native American tribe.

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Photos

The Official End
Palisades Park, Santa Monica

The Magic Lamp Inn
A Route 66 Roadside Atrraction

The Valley of Cloud
Climbing up to Big Bear

Old Route 66
Somewhere in the High Desert, CA

Comments

[Scott Piotrowski]

The End is the Beginning
Three quick comments ... 1) The official western terminus of Route 66 is at Broadway and 7th in Downtown LA. In 1936, when the highway was extended to Santa Monica (for 28 years), it ended at Lincoln and Olympic. Still not at the Will Rogers plaque at Santa Monica and Ocean. That plaque, by the way, was just put back in its place a couple of weeks ago after being damaged by a drunk driver. 2) You should have gone a few miles further for your first night's stay. You could have slept in a Wigwam at the Wigwam Motel in Rialto. Great place. The Patels have done an outstanding job restoring the motel. It is quickly becoming the crown jewel of 66 in California. 3) I won't get into what all was missed between Pasadena and La Verne, but suffice it to say there's a lot there. It's a common misconception that there is nothing left of 66 in LA County. But, that being said, I completely understand the need to make time sometimes. That's what the superslabs are for. Enjoy your trip. Happy travels.

[..the fish..]

FigaroHere, Figaro There!
Hey, young dude, was it just a coincidence that the car, you pictured outside The Magic Lamp Inn, looks remarkably like the Nissan Figaro you had in Waltham Abbey not a million years ago? I did a double take when I saw it - even the red is a similar shade! >

[SharkStalker]

Squiffy guides
Scott, thanks for your comments. You should send your info into the Lonely Planet as their Route 66 guidebook ends the road at the corner of Santa Monica and Ocean Blvds. Nevermind. We missed that Wigwam hotel but stayed in the one in Holbrook instead. Cheers, Matt