Day 15, Fri, Oct 11, Route 66, Santa Monica...

Friday, October 11th, we headed to Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch.

Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch was started in 2000. As we walked thru it, I thought all of this would be in a landfill. Now it is a fascinating tourist site. Every tree is topped with something of interest. It is a free stop and donations are accepted.

We drove toward San Bernardino. To get there we drove thru Cajon Pass. The Mormon Trail passed through here.

San Bernardino is where the original McDonald's was located. It is now a museum. The museum is filled with pictures of past employees of the original McDonald's. It also has collections of all those Happy Meals. There are even shelves devoted to Happy Meal toys in other countries. I only took on picture of the 101 Dalmatian set. 

When Claude was an Airman in the U.S. Airforce, he was stationed at Barksdale A.F.B. To supplement his meager income, he worked at McDonald's. I would drive by the window where the fry guy was cooking those delicious fries and get a peek at Claude.

By now we knew we were sick of the freeways in California. Mind you, we lived there for several years while Claude was stationed at March A.F.B. We understood this was part of ending our journey in southern California. It did not make it any more pleasant. I can honestly say the least favorite part of the mega Route 66 journey is the freeways in southern California.

We made it to Mel's Drive-in where the sign for the official end of Route 66 is located. They share the corner of Lincoln and Olympia.

Pictures taken, it was time to find Santa Monica Pier. I put Santa Monica Pier parking into Google Maps and we were off. The directions had us go down Palisades Highway and make a u-turn to get to the parking lot closest to the Pier. Not an easy task. Claude executed it well. However, when we got to where the map told the entrance was, the road was blocked off. Yike. Claude got back in traffic, found his way up a hill, made a u-turn at a light and had us headed back to our first u-turn location. This time we turned into this parking lot and found a place as close to the end nearest the Pier. It was quite a little hike to the Pier but we made it.

We found a little building with the end of Route 66 signs on it. Pictures were taken.

Time for a really good meal for this day. Bubba Gump for the win!

We learned from our server, the sign for the Santa Monica Pier was right outside Bubba Gumps. At some point, the Pier was made the spiritual end of Route 66. More pictures were taken.

We hiked back to our car. Past the 33 homes along the beach. To get to the end of Route 66 we had driven 2768.6 miles. Whew!!

Google Maps told us we should take the Pacific Coast Highway. Fortunately, we now had experience with this road and making u-turns on it. Once again, Claude executed them perfectly. We were now going on a slow drive to Ventura as this was a very busy road and it was a Friday evening.

Made it to our hotel. Guess what? Major renovations were happening. The front desk was moved to room 108. We were given room 107. Hmmmm...do you think they were concerned about us?