Fire On the Mountain on the Way to Santa Monica

On Hwy 60 we drove Superstition Mountain Drive seeing palm trees and very large cactus. We were in Phoenix, Arizona by 7:30am local time and got on Interstate 10 to head for the California coast. As we crossed the California state line we began to see fields of crops and orange groves. Joshua Tree National Park is beautiful although we didn't take time to stop on this trip.

We took a potty break and filled up the tank with gas at the Pilot on I-10 in Palm Springs. Wind farms are everywhere on the mountains. We heard on CNN about the wildfire there in Palm Springs, looked up and saw the flames coming across the mountain. We put our Sirius radio in the rental car for the trip. It's great having news channels and a big variety of music to choose from. Though Mark is a bit of a hog with it comes to entertainment control.

We didn't do a lot of stopping for pictures and were in Santa Monica, California by 3:00pm local time. By the time we navigated down to the water and found a motel within walking distance of the pier it was dinner time. We spent two nights at the Travelodge. They dickered a bit on the rate which made Mark happy. The manager, Paul was very helpful with setting up our city tour and the cleaning staff went out of their way to make sure we had everything we needed in our room.

Dinner was at a very nice little Italian place called Il Fornaio. My stuffed shells were wonderful and the prices were reasonable. We walked around on the pier and talked with people. Around the corner from the restaurant we found a little hole in the wall place called the Coffee Cup Bakery to get homemade pastries and really good coffee. A sweet little lady from Vietnam ran the place. You could tell all the locals knew her and she took care of everyone like family.

We bought an incredible original oil painting from a very talented artist on the pier. I'm sure our $10 investment will pay off handsomely when it's time to cash in and retire. While strolling on the pier, we also met David Hart and he did a caricature of us. I made the mistake of asking him to make us look better than what he saw. We could have been movie stars by the time he finished. It amazed me at how all his clients seemed to look a lot alike. David was also a church organist and was looking for a new church. You can reach him at hart7319@aol.com. He's willing to relocate. We bought one of his CDs -- well it was a package deal with the portrait. It was well worth the $5 investment. His vocal talents and musical arrangements are like nothing I've ever heard before.

We tried Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for dinner the second night. It was all hype. The food was nothing special and the service in the restaurant was very slow. Mark made friends with the gals running the souvenir shop.

Historical Route 66 ends in Santa Monica. When Route 66 was originally built it ran across the nation from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. This was the first major highway that connected the western part of the nation with the eastern. As families began purchasing automobiles, travel across the nation began to become popular. Family vacations along Route 66, staying in the "down and out" motels and eating at the "mom and pop" restaurants was the way to go. Tourist attractions began to pop up along the route and many skeletons of them remain.