KIT™ Day 18, The Last Day...

After an quick workout, we hit the road for the last leg of our Kicking It Trip (KIT™)...

We went down the freeway a few exits and then exited to continue the Mother Road route.  We went through Cajon Junction/Summit, which indicated we were still at elevation 4350 feet, which is amazing since we are staying pretty darn close to sea level tonight.  Here are two shots, one looking up toward Cajon Summit, and one looking down our next 10 miles or so to get more into the San Bernadino valley.  Note the original road and the new road, next to each other, that was pretty neat.

Next up was Devore, were we were able to see, and drive for a very short distance on, pre-1926 Route 66 concrete.  Most likely the only part of pre-1926 road left, kind of fitting for our last day.  We could also not help but notice the smog, it was pure blue skies when we left Hesperia this morning, and I could not help snapping this.  LA is one city I do not like flying into because you can see what you will be breathing.

During most of the trip today, after the Cajon Summit experience, we were on Foothill Boulevard from San Bernadino to Monrovia, going through many towns.  Once we hit San Bernadino, it was pretty much nothing but businesses and residences, no open spaces, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  It is a very different environment.  It took us, using the back roads, more than five hours to go less than 50 miles.  This is one of the reasons I moved out of California in 1995.  


Near the San Bernadino / Rialto border, we came across the last of seven WigWam motels built in the country (two on Route 66, one we stayed in, one we only photographed).  This one was most likely built in the late 1950's.  

Next up was Fontana, which has a lot of memories for me.  My Grandmother (Nan), used to live here, and I visited many times.  Also in this area is Ontario, Rialto, and Yucaipa - with family that I have visited in the past.  On Wednesday, I will be out in Yucaipa visiting my Aunt and my Cousins, and we are looking forward to it. Later this week, I will also pay respects to my Grandmother, my Uncle, and my Father at Green Acres Cemetery.  But today, it was Bono's giant orange.

We hit Rancho Cucamonga for lunch, and this restaurant has one of my favorite words, and one of Beth's; mine is Brewing, Beth's is Cucamonga :o)

In Monrovia, was a restored gas station, a unique thing for our California stretch of the Mother Road.






As we wound our way through various streets and a detour, I was pleasantly surprised to find Santa Anita Park & Racetrack.  It looked pretty huge and going to a horse race is now on my list...

We made it to Pasadena an I was able to get this picture from a stop light.  There were not many signs left, and this one would be neat at night.  Makes me want to set up my train set, something that is on my list of things to do...

That brought us to the end of this adventure, first at Lincoln and Olympic streets in Santa Monica (the official end of Route 66).  It was very appropriate that there was a Penguin atop a sign here, for this end of our adventure made Beth very verkempt :o(  

We then headed to the end of Santa Monica Blvd for the monument that documents the end of the Route.  Here is a picture of the monument and a picture of the Santa Monica Pier.

Hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventure, I know I have enjoyed posting and sharing.  This is the last KIT™ entry.  This has been a once in a lifetime trip and we have thoroughly enjoyed it.  

I may have a few more entries as we spend the rest of this week here with friends and family.  We will have a few things to celebrate on Friday, so stay tuned :o)

KIT™ Day 10 & 11, Albuquerque

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Blue Swallow.  Here is a picture of the light fixture in the room, and you can see the small bathroom (people must have been much smaller back then, or more likely, having modern conveniences made any internal bathroom a luxury).  The couple that own the Blue Swallow have done an amazing job in just 11 months.


Yesterday was the least amount of Route 66 places of interest during the trip.  Our target was 176 miles, so after a morning jog for me along the Mother Road, we packed up and were turning our tires by 9:30 (after a visit to the gift shop of course :o)

Between Palomas and Montoya, we were required to traverse underneath I-40, and this was the tunnel.  It was pretty narrow, I cannot imagine how larger vehicles maneuver through this.

Next up was Santa Rosa.  Some pretty good googie for Beth, over at Nutwood Junction, when we do the old sign thing, my job is to maneuver the car for her to get a picture out of the passenger window, I think we are at least 90% effective.  We decided to stop for an early lunch since most of the remaining towns were pretty small and we might struggle to get a cool amber beverage.  Just our luck, Joseph's did not start serving such beverages until 1200, and we did not want to sit there for an hour.  Since we already had our waters, and did not want to be rude, we ordered some tater skins to tide us over.  


Here is a photo of the terrain that we were traveling through most of the day, and about 70 of our 176 miles was on I-40, a triple disappointment.  First, we love the older paths where you get a flavor for the locale as we travel through, so being on the interstate was against the premise of this trip.  Second, there are travel centers every 30-40 miles, and there are non-stop billboards advertising all of the things they have there.  It really gets irritating and is an eyesore.  When we did pull off into one of the "towns" in our guide-book, Clines Corners, it was nothing more that a grouping of buildings.  Since we had already taken the exit, we did go inside and did purchase a few things, but after 10-15 minutes, we were ready to get out of there and seek out the friendlier elements of our Route 66 adventure.

We were still searching for a place for a cool amber beverage, so after Beth got some pictures of some ruins at the LongHorn Ranch, we saw a place that had cool amber beverage signs.  We pulled into the parking lot and Beth was reading the description for LongHorn Ranch and it indicated that our destination, Club 203, was a topless bar.  Lucky we recognized our mistake before walking through the door, that could have been awkward.

The next little town we visited was Moriarty, I loved the town welcome sign (not much to do with Route 66, but hey, it caught my fancy :o)  Also in Moriarty was what was the last operating Whiting Brothers gas station.  Whiting Brothers was established in 1917 in Shamrock Texas and has stations all the way to Barstow California. Unfortunately, this station was no longer in service, another victim of the mighty interstate. 

Moriarty was where we were able to get back on the historic Route 66 path, and as we got closer to Albuquerque (ABQ), the terrain turned more mountainous.  It was a beautiful drive through the mountains and into town on Central avenue.  I do not have any pictures because there really were not any good places to pull over (so here is one from on-line).  Once we got into the East side of ABQ, we stopped for an appetizer and that long overdue cool amber beverage, and I searched for a hotel to stay in.  We also watched the end of the Memorial golf tourney, it was great to see Tiger win again, especially at Jack's tournament, where Tiger matched the Golden Bear for career PGA wins.  We ended up at a DoubleTree Hilton just two blocks from downtown (near the Convention Center).

We headed out last night to get the lit neon googie signs along Central Ave., and then headed to the downtown area to watch the Heat and  Celtics playoff game.  We first stopped at a new local brew pub, only open a week, but since we were the only patrons, we decided to move on and search for something a little more exciting.  We found a neat place called The Library (make sure to embiginate the picture to read the book titles, they are a hoot).  We finished watching the game, then walked around a bit, and then had a few slices back at the brew pub (which had more people there, and we were able to share some of our pizza with a hungry patron).  It was a fun evening, but getting back to the room until 1200 AM local time, so decided to take a night off from the KIT™ entry.

Today, it was a sleep in day, then we headed down for our workouts.  Then, after getting into the correct frame of mind, we headed out to find a Laundromat, it is amazing how much laundry accumulates after ten days (especially with workouts on most days).  We dreaded it, but actually were in and out in about an hour.  Just down the road was Kellys where we had lunch.




After that, it was on to Central Avenue again to let Beth get the googie signs in the daylight (which was a challenge with it being overcast and windy).  Here were a few pictures that I stopped to take and share with you.  




Tonight it is back to downtown to watch some of the Spurs vs. Thunder, and get a bite to eat.  We will not have as much fun as last night since it will be up earlier to get our workouts in (this hotel has a great workout facility), load the car, and head on further west.  


Hope you had a great start to the week.

KIT™ Day 8

The first couple of pictures are actually from yesterday, I forgot to include them.  We first encountered a huge colony of Swallows outside of Foss, OK, and we had to stop and snap some pictures.  It was not as harrowing as our encounter with the Osprey, but there were so many birds I was afraid they were going to fly through the open windows on the car.  Over the next hour or so, we came across other colonies, it was amazing to experience.




This morning, since the Best Western we were staying in did not have a workout facility, I decided to really get my kicks on Route 66 and went for a 30 minute run.  I was able to get a picture of this oil rig at the entrance to downtown Elk City.

After leaving Elk City, we headed into Sayre, and even though there was one or two googie shoots for Beth, there was not really much going on.  Once we got beyond the city, there were some long stretches of the original road to our right, but they were not well maintained and we could not drive them.  Here is a shot of one of the stretches.

When we reached Erick, I was struck by the motels and their car ports, we actually turned around so I could get a shot of these since we saw several of this architectural style, that we have not seen yet on our travels.  There is even a Mustang in one of the car ports, but it is not for sale :o)

Today we entered our fifth state when we crossed over into Texas.  It was amazing to see how over the stretch of 50 miles the terrain changed from hay and wheat fields to scrub grass and ranching.

One of our first stops in Texas was Shamrock, where the U Drop Inn has been restored.  It was previously a Conoco gas station and cafe, with really cool neon.  Today, it serves as the Shamrock Chamber of Commerce.  The building was designed by architect J.C. Berry and is some great art deco style.  After snapping our pictures of this great icon of the Mother Road, we searched for a place to have a bite, and after searching all four points of the compass, ended up right a cross the street from the U Drop Inn at Vern's Steakhouse.  We learned that every thing really is bigger in Texas when we ordered our beers. We had the chopped sirloin and it was great, they certainly do know how to do beef here.

In McLean, we were pleasantly surprised when we decided to The Devil's Rope/Old Route 66 Museum.  We almost did not stop because Devil's Rope is barbed wire, and we were not sure that we really wanted to see that.  But as we have experienced, whenever we say we are not sure, we say we should because who knows when we will pass this way again.  It was amazing how much floor space they had filled up with the history and different patents out there for barbed wire.  Turns out that all the bigger ranches had their own barbed wire design and their own way of connecting new sections as they expanded.  Who knew that barbed wire was so complicated?  They also had a pretty good Route 66 section (better than the National Museum in Elk City).  They also had a couple of Burma Shave displays, these are fun and on the road are spaced several hundred feet apart so you can read as you go.

Also in McLean, in the downtown section, we were able to see this restored Phillips 66 station, the first one built in Texas.  The station was built in the 1920's and was operated for 50+ years. 

Once we got outside of McLean, we decided to traverse some original Route 66 dirt roads, sections of the road that were never paved.  This gave use a real feel for the topography of the area.  

The last shots I have for you today are of a restored 1930 "66" Super Services Station from Alanreed Texas.

KIT™ Day 7

We started our day today with our workout (love it when we stay at a place with exercise equipment) and then headed downtown Oklahoma City (OKC) to Robinson and 4th street.  We parked and walked over to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Memorial site.  This is where 168 people lost their lives, and thousands more were impacted beyond words, on April 19, 1995.  Seeing the chairs and the reflecting pool was very moving.  The tree that you see pictured is dubbed the "Survivor Tree", an American Elm, that survived the blast.  There were 16 structures in the surrounding area that had to be demolished and rebuilt due to the strength of the blast.  You can see how strong that tree really is.  


The Gates of Time, marking the entrances from both ends of the memorial were also very poignant.  The closest one is "901" representing the minute before the blast and the innocence of those near by (especially the children in the daycare area), and the farthest one is "903" representing innocence lost...  The message on the wall was painted by one of the first to respond.





Next we moved on to Yukon (the home of Garth Brooks) where we saw these grain elevators.  Grain elevators are one of the items that have been highlighted in our guidebook, so I felt I would be remiss if not having at least one picture (especially as we head to the SouthWest).  This one with the neon sign on top seemed like an excellent choice.  


Yukon is also one of the main points on the old Chisholm Trail, so the opportunity to get the Standard sign in front of this old station building, and also the marker for the Chisholm trail was photo opportunity I just could not pass up.

We were able to do some pretty long runs of the original (1930's) Portland Concrete road today, and this stretch was some of the earliest and most spectacular, outside of El Reno.  The buzzard you see sitting in the road was disturbed by a passing truck and we spent 5-10 minutes watching it fly in the strong winds we had today (25 to 35 mph), trying to get back to what ever it was that was so interesting on the road.  The buzzard would get airborne and try and fly toward the road, and then get swept by a gust backwards, and it would then seek an updraft to get back over the road, and when trying to land would get gusted backward again.  It was quite humorous to watch.

As we were headed to Hinton, and took one of the side spurs of older road, we came to an intersection and had to sit there as three oversize trucks went by along with their escorts.  Each truck had a windmill blade, and they were longer than two normal sized semi-trailers.  We then passed over the Pony Bridge, built in 1933, consisting of 38 "pony" trusses (pony in this context meaning small).  I was even lucky enough to get a shot of a Mustang going over the Pony Bridge :o)


At the far side, we saw a sign that we were entering the Wichita-Caddo-Delaware Tribal Jurisdiction.

A bit further on our journey today we stopped at Lucille's just outside of Hydro, OK.  Built in 1929, it was purchased in 1941 by Lucille and Carl Hamons.  The raised three children in the rooms behind the station, and Lucille ran the business for 59 years.  She must have been an amazing person.

Between Weatherford and Clinton, we came across the point where those large windmill blades must have been destined for.  We had seen a huge wind farm in Illinois, and were even closer to the machines than previously.  Here are a couple of shots to put it in perspective.  The towers are several hundred feet tall, so you do not realize how big the blades are.  The wind had died down just enough that most of the machines were in operation, it was a sight to see (if the wind is to strong, the blades will be locked out to protect the bearings and the windings from excessive speed).


Our next adventure, and one of my favorites for the day was finding the ruins of Kobel's Place.  The station was abandoned, and I loved seeing where the pumps used to be, the concrete getting broken up by the huge oak tree roots, and the remains of the gas station, cafe, and bus station inside the buildings (sink, fridge, cash register, etc.).  What the bed springs had to do with the original business I cannot say, but I am sure there are stories to be told.

We ended our day in Elk City where the National Route 66 museum is located.  We arrived late in the day but were able to squeeze in a tour.  Based on some of the other things we saw on the road, we were a little disappointed with the displays and the lack of passion from the people working there.  Just goes to show that doing what you love, with passion, is remarkable and memorable.  Lessons there for all of us, and I know we will be focused on finding that passion for our remaining stops.