Route 66 baby ~ “FROM CHICAGO TO LA ~ IT’S A WRAP!” (A blog series of our two week adventure!)

Thursday, 5/16/13

Still smiling two weeks in!

We started the day just a short distance away from the end of the route at the Santa Monica Pier.  The California traffic however makes for a very SLOW travel day.  Throughout the day we hit our first McDonalds that has a TESLA charging station.  I’ve fallen in love with the Tesla on this trip and am excited we are going to a gallery to see one after the trip is over. 

We hit the smog in San Bernardino and looked to have lunch at a famous Route restaurant, Bono’s, in Fontana, CA, but found it to be another closed icon, fairly recent by the looks of it.  Onward and through Rancho Cucamonga where I spot my first “Mexicatessan” – a new word for me! We picked up Foothill Boulevard here and traveled it through the next 10 cities to Pasadena.  It’s very slow going and the traces of the original Route are far and few between the strip malls, chain restaurants and urban sprawl we pass through. 
 
In Pasadena we followed the Arroyo Seco Parkway to the final section of Rout 66 – Sunset Boulevard.  We turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard at 3:34pm with just a short distance to go through Hollywood, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills before reaching Santa Monica.  And this began our trip in near dead stopped traffic for almost two hours.  Soooooooo close….and yet so far away….

The corner of SM Boulevard and Ocean Avenue

We finally reached the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, at 5:16 pm on a beautiful 65 degree sunny evening, 2,725 miles from our starting point.  After parking the car, we walked to take our final Route 66 pic at the Will Rogers Highway plaque.  Down the road a bit was Palisades Park and the Santa Monica Pier, in full swing.

So this was it.  It was bittersweet to realize we were finished.  Honestly, we could have kept on going.  As vacations go, this was one of our best.  We saw a lot, had some great adventures, met some nice people, a special little smiling French fry and fit in a little unexpected four wheeling!  We ate well, drank copious amounts of coffee and tea, and had some fun with our meals and snacks.  We laughed hard, shared comfortable silences and had awesome conversations.  It was months in the planning and provided more than I ever expected.  It was a journey that provided a bit of history, some truly beautiful landscape and most important, the opportunity to explore it over two leisurely weeks with each other. 
 
There’s a big shout out thank you to add to the end of this series.  The one aspect of the trip I haven’t written about has been the group of family and friends who came a long for the ride in spirit.  We got sent information on the Route, our friends the Stouters travelled it a month before we did and shared highlights, there have been Facebook “likes”, blog “follows” and great comments in both places as well as on the Facebook picture album.  Sharing the trip has been a pleasure and privilege and we thank you for coming along for the ride and adding to the adventure!