Route66 California – WASABI EARS (FINAL POST)

STOP PRESS: Root69 - The Movie can be seen at: https://vimeo.com/album/2962309

24-26 June 2013: Days 41-43 of 43 – Williams, Kingman, Seligman, Oatman, Topock ARIZONA, Bagdad, Barstow, Santa Monica, West Hollywood CALIFORNIA. 
Route66: Days 12-13 of 13. 
Overnights Barstow, West Hollywood (Los Angeles) California. 
Period 956km, Route66-866km for 4,052km, Total 16,501km.  
ROOT69 FINAL LOG: 1 Country, 21 States, 96 Locations, 16,501km (10,253miles), 43 days, 42 nights, 28 runs (over 17 states added to 8 pre-existing to make 25 in all).

Route 66 before and after the Arizona / California border is the best of the whole trip. This is because it is classic road – plenty of 66 symbols on the bitumen, lined with scrub and cactus and surrounded by desert and distant flat top escarpments. It is also in one piece and uninterrupted: 160 miles (258km) from I40 Exit 139 (just after Ash Fork) to

Topock in Arizona and 123 miles (198km) from I40 Exit 115 (After Needles) to Barstow in California. My favourite bit is from Amboy to Bagdad in California since that is the bit that is this blog background!!! We also saw some terrific Route 66 kitsch today (Mon 24 June). Williams ARIZONA was the first place for kitsch and the first of many interviews with locals today. Williams is a one main road wild west type town but with gorgeous pine covered mountains the background. Life is slow here and we managed to interview three crusty characters. The key learning from one of them, who was a champion whip master, is that Kangaroo belly makes the best whips since it is tough, light and already very stretched so it does not split. Further along, Seligman was easily the best town for 66 kitsch featuring many motels, cafes, garages and even a

salon with car on top. Seligman was the sight of our second interview with a local basking guitarist – lovely bloke who explained why so many people travel Route 66 – “nostalgia” was the number one reason.

Between Seligman and Peach Springs are a whole lot of “Burma Shave Signs”, which are individual signs making up an message – originally these were used in the Route 66 heyday to advertise business in the next Route 66 town. They are an invention of Route 66. Nowadays the local councils use them to get motorists to slow down or not drink and drive etc. Kingman was another kitschy town but most of the businesses there were mothballed – very sad. The third interview was in a lonesome café outside Kingman and the key learning here were that Europeans have now overtaken American visitors on Route 66 – their reason for visiting is that Route 66 traverses the “real” America.

The highlight today was Oatman. It is a tiny, one street, all wood town and looks like something out of an American Western movie. What makes it unique is that the main street is full of mules, roaming around and brushing up against visitors for food (mainly carrots or apples). I had my first root beer float – very sweet but tasted delicious. The temperature was 105F (41C) so it was a much-needed drink!!! Oatman is also the most lively and busiest place of all the Route 66 towns we visited to date. It exists because of a nearby sand quarry. From Oatman to Topock at the Arizona / California border, the Route 66 scenery was terrific. Very flat, with distant flat top precipices and wispy clouds above.

Bagdad in California was another surprise – one motel and one café but actually operational! We did not have time to stop there but apparently the café serves great home cooked meals. Barstow is not much to speak of. It is a railroad and marines town with indigenous run casinos – we passed here on Day 2 on our way to Las Vegas. Our hotel here was spacious and overlooked the desert with a magnificent sunset. Once more we ate in room to get an early start tomorrow – the drive to Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, the final end point of the great Route 66.

The drive from Barstow to the Pier took ages. We knew we were in the LA area when we were greeted with a layer of brown smog as we turned onto the freeway at San Bernardino Valley. Route 66 is like Parramatta Road (Sydney) for 70 miles (113km) through the outskirt suburbs of LA. You pass through many suburbs ranging from the commission homes to the gated ones with manicured lawns. There are some 66 curios along the way including the second Wigwam Motel (Tepees for rooms) in Rialto. We stopped off at a classic 50s diner to have coffee
and Bubba “accidently” ordered a huge plate of chips, smothered with three melted cheeses and a ton of bacon – at 11am!!! We had to “help” him finish it off – Thelma and Louise were following us today so that we could all take our victory photo at the end of Route 66. Finally at 3pm on Tuesday 25 June, after 8 hrs of driving and stopping, we arrived at the intersection of Lincoln and Olympic Boulevards which is the actual historical end of Route 66 – there are no signs or plaques there to say so – this was in my Route 66 Historical Society maps that I used to navigate the whole trip. Later, for commercial reasons, the end of Route 66 was moved to where Santa Monica Boulevard ends at Ocean Avenue on Santa Monica Beach just metres away from the Pier. There is an official plaque there dedicated to

none other than Will Rogers who is the poet and author typically associated with the "romanticisation" of Route 66. We took our victory photos and film at that spot. We could not believe it. We had made it and without a single incident. Route 66 according to the Mustang Odometer had covered 2,518 miles (4,052km). The published length based on travelling all pre 1933 alignments is published at 2,451 miles (3,945km). We had travelled a mixture of alignments to get the longer result. Santa Monica beach put on a great show for our triumphant entry – blue sky, sun, shimmering clear blue water (you do not often see this) and a warm 32C. After dropping off the Thelma and Louise

Hyundai at the airport we all resumed our places in the Mustang and greeted our hotel in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard (the last bit of Route 66). At the hotel we popped a Moet et Chandon to officially celebrate our Route 66 conquest before dolling up to have our celebration dinner and last supper together and with special guest stars, Zachary and his girlfriend Farrah. Zach’s dad Mark is Bubba’s (Paris’s) brother.

I had first met Zach in 1987 when he was just 7 and now he stands 6ft 4inches tall!!! Zach works as a server at a restaurant called Koi, only 10min walk from our hotel – organised deliberately so we would not have to drive.

Koi is an up market modern Japanese American fusion restaurant frequented by Bruce Willis and Leonardo Di Caprio. Zach has often served Bruce Willis and they go by first name basis. Zach and Farrah were our guests that night and we had a ball. Zach did all the food ordering, I did all the wine ordering and the rest of us shared heaps of highlights of our trip. Zach has been working at Koi for 6 years and has known Farrah for 7 years, having met in college. Farrah was born in England of an English mum and Iranian dad. Zach was headed for a majors baseball career but got injured.

The food was very unique – sushi, sashimi, wagyu done with thinly sliced veggies and covered in tantalising sauces. The Californian Fume Blanc matched it well and we lost count of how many bottles we drank. So much so that I put Wasabi in my ears to compare its sound proofing qualities to blu-tac. May I say that the sound disappeared but my ears burned like buggery – I could still not hear properly the whole next day. This evening would go down as the “Wasabi Night” but the food, company and conversation easily outdid it. Our final day, Wednesday 26 June 2013 was spent checking out Hollywood and Beverley Hills in Los Angeles. We all hopped on a double-decker, open-top, "hop-on, hop-off" bus (an Ozzie invention, by the way...) which drove around 15 stops in 2hrs.

It was a cracker of a day – cloudless blue sky and 30C. We hoped off the bus to walk the full length of Hollywood Boulevard. It has been cleaned up and not as seedy as I remember. There is a huge new shopping complex next to Grumman’s Chinese Theatre from where you can see the Hollywood sign. The place was packed. At around 1:30pm, Bubba farewelled Thelma and Louise and I drove him to the Amtrak station next to Bob Hope Airport at Burbank so he could catch his 3:30pm train back to San Francisco. It was a sad moment leaving Bubba alone at the station.

Bubba Gump had become almost a brand – great company – great conversation and many memorable interviews. My final run was down Santa Monica Boulevard (Route 66) passed Beverley Hills – all of a sudden the heartland American bungalows and Fords were now replaced by Spanish Mansions and Mercs. It was a great run and I did not realise it, but West Hollywood is actually the gay area of LA. Even the pedestrian crossings are a painted rainbow! Not that there is anything wrong with that! On our last day, California just approved gay marriage and the place was packed with revellers so we had to try and find a place to eat on the way to the airport.

We were lucky. Our final meal was a magnificent gourmet hamburger and big piece of apple pie in an old 60s style diner that we came across by fluke. Red booths, old photos, neon out front and started by a Greek! The second sad moment today was handing back the Mustang – my home for the last 43 days. The final odometer reading was a grand total drive of 16,501km (10,253 miles), exactly 1,000km more than we estimated. We also visited 21 states, 2 more than originally planned. We visited a grand total of 96 locations (cities, towns, national parks, monuments or other places of interest). Root69 brought my total USA states run in to 25 - half of the USA!!!

THE ROOT69 BEST & WORST:
1) My favourite weird hotel experience was in Walsenburg COLORADO because of the very strange owners and having to sit outside wrapped in a blanket in the middle of the night to post my blog under a moonlit sky and several dogs howling. 
2) My nicest hotel was in Millersburg OHIO because of the olde worlde charm and large size of room. 
3) My worst hotel was in Branson MISSOURI because we had to move rooms because of bad plumbing and the front door did not lock in the second room with mould on the ceilings. 
4) My best meal was the 8 rare lamb cutlets at the Italian restaurant on Frenchmans Road in Chicago ILINOIS. 
5) My worst meal was the gravy infested pull apart pork with 10kg of raw carrots in Hurricane UTAH. 
6) The highlight for me was visiting the actual untouched Apollo Control Room in Houston. My trek from the top of the southern rim of the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River at the bottom and back again was a VERY VERY close second. 
7) The most amount of laughing we did was shooting the last photo in this blog!!!

My parting thoughts after such a grand road trip is: if you want to see the “real” America, you must hit the road. The USA might as well be a continent and the states, countries... given the diversity of food, accent, attitudes and culture across them all. America has a definite culture of its own and an identity that is pronounced and proud. Nationalism is at an all-time high. Finally, Route 66 is a great way to see the real America and experience the one word that best describes this classic roadside experience: “nostalgic”…"Houston, this is Root69 signing off"…