Getting our kicks on Route 66 - day one
The Mother Road adventure - celebrating Route 66’s 100 year anniversary
Our drive along Route 66 for the 100 year anniversary official began today in Santa Monica, California. Yeah, yeah, we’re sort of doing it backwards but would you expect anything else from us? This adventure was actually an idea proffered by Kate Pickle and, of course, we were in right away. Our friend Bill Ellsbeck is also along for the ride so we’ve got three Mini Lites going backward down the Mother Road.
Well, sorta.
I was surprised when I told a friend that we’d be in Santa Monica at the terminus of Route 66 and he didn’t realize it even came this far. It does. Well, did, right? Route 66 is officially decommissioned although we all know that that didn’t take hold thanks to so many volunteers like Angel Delgadillo and many, many others.
Well, it is officially decommissioned but there is so much happening on the Mother Road including freshened landmarks and new destinations, all to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the famous road.
The Santa Monica Pier
Essentially Route 66 dumped all those weary travelers out onto the Santa Monica Pier and, when I was a young lad, you used to be able to drive on the Pier. I did many a time in my old Plymouth.
Today it’s essentially blocked off and has renewed energy with flocks of tourists even at this moment in time, which is sort of the “off season.”
The Pier is home to tons of restaurants, carnival games, a roller coaster, Ferris wheel and other attractions.
In true LA fashion there are also street musicians including a gent who was singing karaoke versions of popular songs and doing about as well as that drunk guy in the bar. But, he was entertaining and many of these performers are pretty great.
Bill’s goal was to get a sunset photo of the pier and then we’d head over to Mel’s Drive In for dinner. Since we arrived too early for the sun to take its nightly siesta, we had to sit and drink beers in what was claimed to be the best roof-top bar on the Pier.
Nobody told our server of this designation but the seagulls had absolutely gotten the message and were ready to help themselves to your food if you blinked.
There’s a sign on the Pier that reads, “End of the Trail” and has the Route 66 logo and people stand in line to get to that sign and have a photo taken. We did just that several times.
We also visited the gift shop at the end of the Pier where Peggy got to smash a penny and the shopkeepers were really pleasant. They were even giving away the pennies to be smashed, although you had to pay for your own smashing which was just fine.
I decided that I would start collecting Route 66 pins, which is much cheaper than t-shirts, and bought my first pin in the little store at the end of the Pier where the penny smasher and the friendly penny peddlers were.
One interesting thing - the Looff Hippodrome was closed while we were there and our server never bothered to answer why it was closed. According to Wikipedia all is well and it looked to be in good shape through the windows. Hmm.
Once we had our sunset shots, a couple of beers and helped many others get their photos it was off to Mel’s Drive In.
Mel’s Drive In
To put a night cap on the day we ventured over to Mel’s Drive In. This iconic restaurant is actually part of a chain of Mel’s Drive Ins, many of which do not have car hops nor serve you in your car. But that’s okay, too.
This building is essentially the real official end of Route 66 with a sign painted on the side to indicate that but, right across the street, there’s also a street sign making the same statement. Must be true.
Mel’s is a prime example of Googie architecture which I absolutely love. It was built in 1959 as the Penguin Restaurant and was a dental office at one point. Now it’s part of the Mel’s Drive In chain.
All four of us got hamburgers with Peggy and I each getting the Melburger and we split a butterscotch malt. I mean, ya’ gotta get a malt at a diner, right?
The food, service and atmosphere was absolutely on point with friendly staff in a really stylish building. If you want to know more about that building, here ya’ go.
Malibu Creek State Park
RVs aren’t overly compatible with big cities like LA but Peggy found the Malibu Creek State Park, in Malibu, which we’ve stayed at in the past in our Jayco pop-up trailer. Years ago!
This time we have our honkin’ Mini Lite, which is kind of neither, and the first spot we had chosen was too tight to get into. Then we got a second assignment. Finally the very patient lady at the kiosk in the front asked us to choose a few spots and report back to her.
We found site 2 would be very accommodating for the 26’ length of our trailer but, according to our LevelMateMax, we were almost 9” off side-to-side. We used every leveling block we had and used our Beech Lane wedge levelers as ramps to get up on the blocks and then secured the trailer with wedge blocks on one side and added the x-chocks that we’re not big fans of as additional stabilization. It worked.
Malibu Creek State Park is adjacent to the site where they filmed the TV Show M*A*S*H in the 1970s and there are still remnants from that filming. It’s a bit of a hike to get back to the site itself but the mountain range is familiar to anyone who was a fan of that show.
The RV park itself has no hook-ups but there are several water spigots around and the facility has a dump station. Naturally we used our ABC Upfitters solar and lithium system to harness the power of the beautiful California sun.
Yes. I absolutely miss living in this part of the world. Quite a bit, actually. The perfect days and cool nights are a big draw which is also why there are so doggone many people in this area.
Tomorrow we’re doing more exploring of historical remnants of the Mother Road and I look forward to sharing those with you as well.
