The End of the (Mother) Road

After 17 days of traveling, including a few we took off, we made it to the end of the Mother Road today.  The End Route 66 sign was right next to Mel's Diner in Santa Monica, so we got out to take our pics and went in to have a celebratory drink.  Buddy was waiting in the car, so we shared a Mel's Route 66 White Ale and went out to take a few pics with him too, then hit the road to start driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway.

One of the coolest bridges we saw along the whole drive was just a few miles from the end, in Rancho Cucamonga.  One side was embellished with old cars and the other paid homage to the eight states that are part of Route 66.  I decided I had to turn around to get pics of both sides, and it turns out that a portion of the original road was saved as part of the park next to the bridge.  I thought that was a pretty cool thing for the city of Rancho to do.

We drove alongside the ocean for a couple of hours and made it as far as Oxnard, CA before pulling off for the night.  We plan to take our time heading north, as we can't get into the condo in Portland until July 1, so the plan is to continue taking our time and maybe checking out a couple of wineries along the way.

The 2 days we spent visiting family here in the LA area were a great time.  Chris and Frances were great hosts and Evelyn was THE most charming almost-5 year old you can imagine.  I had never met 1 year old Jack, except on Skype, so I didn't have high expectations of him wanting anything to do with me, but he was surprisingly friendly.  He's got the biggest, darkest eyes you can imagine and a happy go lucky personality.  I had a ball with them all and only wish we could have spent more time with them all.

I'll post more about our adventures as they occur.  Bye.