day 3: get your kicks on route 66!

the morning started out bright and early again with dad and mom getting rolling around 7am while the kids slept. everyone woke up around 8:30am and grabbed a quick bite for breakfast before we hit the gnarly L.A. traffic. we navigated the freeways with only one orange traffic marker causality and made it down to the Santa Monica pier where the end of Route 66 has been located since 2009. we got a photo by the official sign and talked to an older gentleman who told us he had been on the route several times and his friend at the end of the pier had been on the route about 25 times and now owned a shop that sold all sorts of things pertaining to Route 66. we stopped by and picked up a few postcards and then checked out what else was on the pier. mom got to play skeeball and then we found the big arcade and each played a couple of games. with our ticket winnings we got a couple of temporary tattoos. before leaving we stopped by Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for lunch. 

a display in front of the shop that the guy who has gone on the route 25 times  has collected

then we took off for Route 66! following the handy maps we had we choose to go the original route through all the cities and suburbs. we hit around 322 stoplights (not kidding) and saw all sorts of vintage gems between the modern city sights. we missed getting a photo of the windmill on top of the denny’s that dated back from the days that it was a Van de Kamp eatery but we managed to find most of the other sights that our book on Route 66 told us about.

along the way we learned that mom loves to take photos of roadsigns. here are a few samples and pictures of the sights. 

sign #1

sign #2

sign #3 and a bunch were even deleted

when we stopped to say goodbye to family aunt sara thought it would be funny to tape a bright orange sign onto the back of the RV that said “Sara’s cool! Pass it on” this has been a running joke for the last years between dad and aunt sara to write in the dirt of each other’s windows that “van dalen’s/sara’s cool! pass it on” in Rancho Cucamonga we pulled up to a stop light and we suddenly hear a yell “Sara’s cool!!! WOOO!” we cheered and laughed. so there ya go aunt sara we passed it on.

we managed to travel 77 miles from santa monica to san bernardino where we stopped for the night at the Wigwam Motel. we looked at the first McDonalds because they were already closed for the night, the kids got to play in the pool, everyone got a nice hot shower, and we got to sleep in a teepee for the night. 

what other exciting things will we see on our trip east?