“Every exit is an entrance somewhere else” - Tom Stoppard

It’s sad to see it go. Just as it was sad to see it go in 2004 and 2006. When I woke up this morning, just as I had woken up the mornings of the last day of 66 in 2004 and 2006, I imagined being able to spend time at Santa Monica pier. To gaze into the Pacific Ocean and recount my weeks on the Mother Road.

This morning when I woke up, I knew it was the last bit of Route 66 I’d see for awhile. I knew it was the last time I’d open my guidebooks and research the history of past alignments. I knew from here on out, things would be very different.

This morning when I woke up, I showered and loaded the scooter. The family who stayed next to me brought a pick up truck’s worth of stuff for the weekend. They had more camping supplies than I’ve ever seen anyone have. I had a Vespa’s worth.

I rode out of the campground to Daggett, where I left off yesterday. And in Daggett I wandered around, explored the small town a little.

Daggett was the last Route 66 town I would explore on this trip. From here on out, things are too hectic, especially on a Memorial Day, to do much more than ride.

I was told to explore Sante Fe Street a bit. So I did. On it I found the Daggett Garage, which has an amazing past. You can read it here. Very neat.

Yesterday, I said that Daggett wasn’t a good place to stop for the night. I take that back. Not that the KOA was wonderful or anything, but everything that came before Daggett and everything that came after Daggett were very different from each other. Basically, from Barstow on, it was very LA.

Not that there isn’t great stuff in Barstow and Victorville, there is. But the population increased and the ability to just pull over and take pictures decreased. It became less about doing and more about seeing. LA is basically all about seeing. Most cities are. The Route 66 that I like is very rural. LA has some great stuff and I think it’s a pretty ok town. But it doesn’t beat Daggett, California.

Barstow, which is basically Daggett’s parent city, has a bunch of motels and generally keeps a Route 66 vibe. It’s bigger than I remember it and on this holiday morning, traffic was dead, but that’s ok with me.

A lot of distance separates Barstow and Victorville.

Jack Rittenhouse says of this point -

You are now leaving the vast desolation of the Mojave and are entering a region in which many small towns lies close together. The nearby Mojave River provides enough water to enable shade tress to grow in these towns, although there is still bare desert between. The region is full of dude ranches, small farms, and “desert hideaways.”

Much of this is still true. These towns aren’t so small anymore. The shade trees are less, as is the amount of bare desert between. But mostly, this still holds true.

The towns of Lenwood, Hodge, Helendale and eventually Oro Grande, while still separated by desert, are basically run together. Upon this desert separation houses have been built and developments have popped up. This is no longer a lonely stretch of road.

One of the final Route 66 icons (going east to west, that is) lies on this stretch. The Bottle Forest.

Route 66 has a lot of weird. I like weird. And the bottle forest is weird. Elmer (aka the Bottletree Man of Oro Grande) has constructed a whole forest of bottle trees. Two years ago, we stopped and talked with him for a bit. But today I was more in the mood to get to Cajon Pass before the traffic returning from a crappy weekend in Vegas got there. More on that in a bit.

After a pretty huge cement factory, I came into Victorville. Over 30 miles had passed since Barstow. I was low on gas and thankfully Victorville provided. I think I would like Victorville. It still seems to hold onto some of its small town charm. Unfortunately, the city is moving in. Over 200 movies were filmed in Victorville. The town used to resemble a typical “wild west” town. Most of those movies were wild west movies like the Gene Autry picture, Twilight on the Rio Grande.

Even the Jazz Singer was filmed here. I think this might just be the last Route 66 town (again, going east to west).

All morning I had been dreading one thing. Actually, all throughout the planning of the trip, one very small stretch of road had me so terrified that I was happily going to go three or four hours out of my way to avoid a 10 minute chunk of interstate.

That chunk is Cajon Pass.

Cajon Pass drops a billion feet in only a couple miles. Ok, it’s not that bad. I think it’s a 6% grade. Which also is fine. However, the speed at which the kind folks going into LA take this pass is amazing. When I did it in a car, at 85mph, I was terrified.

I figured a scooter just couldn’t do it. I was told by locals to skip it. I was told by a guy at the campsite where I stayed the previous night that with the wind and fog and trucks, he wouldn’t do it on a scooter.

It’s always wise to heed the advice given to you by locals. But in this case, I did not.

I stopped at the Summit Inn, gathered some strength and tore out onto the interstate expecting to have to do 80mph just to stay alive.

The winds were picking up, the fog was thick and settling in, and the speeds of the motorists were amazing. Rittenhouse suggests that “sometimes it is necessary to use second gear for safety,” but these folks weren’t paying much attention it.

After about 30 seconds, an 18 wheeler passes me. He is going about 65mph, I had not yet picked up full speed. When he pulls in front of me, he slows down to about 55mph. And he was my front door all the way down the pass.

Thank you, unnamed trucker. Thank you for quite possibly saving my life.

Near the bottom of the hill is the exit for Cajon Blvd, Old 66. I take it and follow that (mostly) into San Bernardino.

You can read more about Cajon Pass here.

San Bernardino is where the LA portion of Route 66 is in full effect. From here on, it’s a city.

There are many relics of Old 66 along the way. And it’s definitely not something that should be missed, especially for the 66′r who wants to do Chicago to LA.

This time I was taking a slightly different alignment, going through Chinatown.

I got a little lost along the way, but managed to figure it out.

See, California is REALLY amazingly good at marking which roads are Route 66. However, they don’t seem to find it important to tell you when a road stops being Route 66. Like, when you have to turn left on whatever street to follow Route 66. They just don’t mention it. Thanks, California.

I’ve also noticed that California randomly has numbered exits. Some are numbers and some just aren’t. That’s an improvement, but it makes no sense at all to just do like half of them (though even that is giving California way too much credit). Seriously, fix this.

In cities, it’s pretty well impossible to pull over and take pictures of stuff. Even though there are a ton of red lights, it seems that there just isn’t enough time to pull the camera out of my pocket, turn it on, take the pic, turn it off and stuff it back into my pocket. So I decided to just hang it around my wrist and not turn it off. I would take a picture at every red light that stopped me.

I did this for quite some time and it seems to be a pretty fun thing. I wish I would have thought of this before.

I hate driving in LA. But riding a scooter in LA isn’t bad at all! I thought it would be worse. It almost makes me like the town. Today showed me a side of LA that isn’t all evil. I could probably live here… but wouldn’t. It’s just too big.

And there I was, only a few blocks away from finishing Route 66. I got a little sad.

Several minutes later and I found the archway over the entrance to the Santa Monica Pier. I pulled over the best I could to take a picture or two. The endings of the Route 66 journeys always seem anti-climactic. I’d love to get out and take pictures, visit the pier, like I did in 2006, but today that wasn’t possible. Much of the street was blocked off for Memorial Day festivities.

All I could manage was a picture taken practically over my shoulder.

There was hardly even time to think, “what will I do now?” Route 66 and Jack Rittenhouse have been my companions for nearly the whole of this journey. As I made that turn north on California Route 1, I thought, what will I have to guide me? What is the plan? Was Route 66 just my schooling to get me started? Is it up to me to guide myself, and you, the reader, through the rest of America?

Maybe.

It’s worth a shot.

So let’s get started, ok? From Ocean Ave, where Route 66 unofficially ends, I swung around to California Route 1 and took it north. My destination was Carpinteria, CA, roughly 70 miles up the coast.

For you long time readers of my blog, you might remember Carpinteria as the town where Nikki, Ashley and I stayed after finishing Route 66 and before heading onto Big Sur and visiting Cole.

My plan after Carpinteria? Heading to Big Sur and visiting Cole. Somethings are best left unchanged.

Route 1 is a twisty little road that appears and disappears with California’s amazing lack of signage. I was following it and suddenly, just before Oxnard, it was gone. Where did it go? I’m not sure. I stopped an asked directions and was told that it would start again, just stay on US 101. I did and it did and it was great to see the Pacific Ocean again.

Along Route 1, there are lots of places to pull off to view or swim in the ocean. I gladly took advantage of one about 30 miles north of LA.

I got off the bike and walked up on a rock. While I was up there, an asian woman in her early 20’s approached me holding a parking or speeding ticket. “Are you the ticket collector?” I wasn’t really sure why she was asking me, but I said “… no?” She tried to explain that she wanted to pay her ticket to me. Yeah, she thought that I was a cop. Why? Maybe it was the bright red scooter with Pennsylvania tags. I really have no idea why she thought I was the fuzz, but it was cute. She laughed, a little embarrassed, and walked away.

A bit farther up the coast, I pulled over to see an amazing art project along the side of the road. Someone had stacked up pillars of rocks. Some were miraculously balanced on top of each other. This was great. I’m glad I wondered onto it before they were knocked down.

Back on the 101 and a few miles later, I was in Carpinteria and then at my motel - La Casa del Sol! Definitely not the nicest joint in the world, but I’m a sucker for 40’s and 50’s era motels. Even if they are a bit run down.

However, I do want to start camping. Or at least staying with people. We’ll see how that goes.

And for those who are wondering, every exit is an entrance to somewhere else. The blog will keep going and I’ll keep posting. I can imagine that this will take on a slightly different feel, but it will still be here and I hope that most of you will keep reading if you like it.

Here are my pics from today.

Miles today: 264
Miles total: 4551