Bill

Today was the the day! We made it to the end of Route 66! Turns out, there really was no “official” end to the Route back in the day. People just turned wherever they needed to once they saw the ocean. Since the resurgence of interest in the Route, a group lobbied to have signs added on Santa Monica Pier. Some other interesting sights from this day were: The location of the first McDonald’s, the famous Wig Wam motel, some beautiful old steak houses and a 100 year old drug store with a soda fountain. The unplanned bonus of this day was that we saw our little brother Jordan, and Colette, who lived only a few blocks from the End of Route 66 sign! We then went to our campsite in Malibu which overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Pretty nice spot for a much needed few days of rest.

Today was a long travel day in the desert. We saw an amazing old town called Goff, Amboy Crater and another Harvey House. We didn’t like the look of the campground we had for this night so, to our disappointment, we had to get a hotel for this night in Victorville, CA.

What a day! We saw Winslow, Arizona, and stood on a corner (Eagles song reference). Next, a train-side hotel charmed us. La Posada was one of the “Harvey” hotels. He introduced silver, china, and linen to the west in his hotels. We saw Meteor Crater. We found a real ghost town; Two Guns, AZ. The day ended with our first exposure to the Grand Canyon at sunset, where we “face-timed” our moms and were then dumbstruck for hours. We arrived late in the day during a rain storm so no-one was there. The rain cleared and it seemed we had the south rim to ourselves, along with a rainbow.

Today, after crossing the Continental Divide (where water flows to the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other), we saw an iconic hotel called “El Rancho” where many Hollywood stars stayed for vacations and movie shoots. Then we began to see more of the classic features of the western US including the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest National Park.

This was a very memorable day. We saw three historical cities in New Mexico; Las Vegas (not the gambling one), Santa Fe (the capital) and Albuquerque, where we found a few Breaking Bad locations.

Today began with homemade sausage from Lone Mound Ranch. Then we saw the famous “Cadillac Ranch” and made it past the halfway point between Chicago and Santa Monica before ending at Ute Lake state park in New Mexico.