Route 66 Day 52 Nov 29, 2019

Route 66 backwards!  I had followed Route 66 from Chicago to Kingman AZ.  I still needed to do the portion from Kingman to Santa Monica.  But I was going to do Santa Monica to Kingman instead.  It took me 7 hours on the expressway, so hopefully I could do it slow and steady and enjoy what was left of the route in 3 days.  There were a few things I missed because they were closed when I got there, but I was able to do quite a few things and I can always fill in the missing its after my Flagstaff assignment is complete.


Santa Monica was easy enough to get to, and I found the “Route 66 Begins” sign.  I should have looked on the back part to see if it said “Route 66 Ends” but I didn’t.  There were several old, iconic restaurants in this area, and I wished I hadn’t eaten breakfast before I started.  But I’ll be back.  The route led through Beverly Hills and Los Angeles.  I’m pretty sure I missed a pretty big part of it when I was following GPS directions to an old portion of Route 66 that had tunnels, but the GPS didn’t keep me on route and I didn’t realize that until later.  Took me a while to get back on from there, but I got there eventually.  Lots of old hotels and burger joints.  Found the California WigWam Motel but it was too early in the day, so I decided to keep going. Lots of current monuments to Route 66.  Past a Drive In that I meant to research, but never got around to it.  The highlight of my day was the McDonalds Museum in the original McDonalds location.  Its full of happy meal toys from the last 50+ years from all over the world.  There is old playground equipment inside and out and there is a lovely mural outside representing the area and business in the area.  It was well done and brought back memories.


I took an exit south of Hesperia to take a photo of a historical marker.  The area had nothing except a gas staton, McDonalds and this historical marker but there were a hundred cars obstructing traffic and lining up around the McDonalds.  I should have had almost 2 hours of daylight left, but I got stuck in the congestion, then couldn’t get back on the freeway due to being in the wrong lane and then trying to find a place to turn around.  Cars were lined up on the other side of the interstate too.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on.  This was a National Forest, and this was a holiday weekend and there were cars parked along the side of the road where kids were playing in the freshly laid snow.  Perhaps they don’t have regular parks around here to play in the snow?  While there was still daylight, there were still cars parked on the side of the road.  And I expect the cars congesting the McDonalds, gas station and on-ramp area were people leaving the snow-covered forest.  There were a lot of snowmen on the side of the road.


Anywhooo….I wasn’t able to really do much else.  I stopped and took a photo of hotel sign that was on my Route 66 list.  It was dark and the sign wasn’t lit, but I had to keep going to find somewhere to sleep.  The actual hotel has burned down recently and only the sign remains.

Finally made it to Victorville, where I hid in the back of a hotel parking lot and got a solid 8 hours of sleep.








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