The End of the (Mother) Road

 We had a hardy breakfast at the Wagon Wheel and set out for Pasadena. Today’s travels would take us through the heart of the Mojave Desert.  Our first stop was at the little “town” of Goffs, the location of a restored 1914 schoolhouse run by the Mojave Desert Historical and Cultural society and not much else. We didn’t plan on stopping at Goffs, but the guidebook mentioned it and it was right on the route. Goffs, like any of the ghost towns we’ve visited, was originally a railroad water stop and for railroad workers and their families. At most it probably had 200 people around the turn of the century, and is now the home of 6 hardy souls and the director of the Cultural Society who only lives there 5 days a week.

Old road grading equipment in Goffs. Much of RT66 was dirt in this area until the 1930s. Goffs was bypassed by RT66 after only a few years and was essentially abandoned after serving as a canteen for local troops in WWII. One person at the museum told me Patton had his desert training grounds and logistics depot nearby 

The ubiquitous windmills, pumping underground water for people and cattle

Old mining equipment on display at Goffs

The restored 1914 schoolhouse. Restored perhaps too well. It looked like a modern building to me, housing the collection of the Mojave Desert Historical and Cultural Society 

The "Mojave Cross" has an interesting backstory. Originally placed in a different location by a landowner as a memorial to WWI soldiers, it became the subject on a 2010 Supreme Court case when the land came under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. The issue was having a religious display on public property. The Court ruled that it was not a religious symbol, but a memorial to fallen soldiers and as such stripped of its religious meaning and allowed to stand. This cross was stolen and found 10 years later, then relocated to Goffs as part of their cultural display

The next section of RT66 had been washed out and not repaired yet, so we had to take to RT 40 again to bypass it. When we got back on RT66 we backtracked a bit to get to Chambliss, which is nothing more than a road crossing with a defunct roadhouse (the Roadrunner Cafe) that is supposedly being rebuilt, but we could find no evidence of that. Next stop was Roy’s Diner at Amboy CA. There were 2 planes inexplicably taxiing down RT66 and into Roy’s parking lot. The mystery was solved when I saw the tiny Roy’s Airport just behind the diner. I guess they used the parking lot of the diner to park their planes.

Roy's Diner with a plane in its parking lot

People put random things in the desert and they become "roadside attractions"

Roy's Airport

We must have passed 100's of former motels on this trip

The Bagdad Cafe, where the movie of the same name was filmed

Stuff on your roof can attract attention to your business

In Victorville, CA

Across the street from Roy's

Ludlow CA, a little different from Ludlow VT

The San Bernadino peaks beckoned us for miles as we traveled across the Mojave

The Bottle Tree Ranch had acres of, well, bottle trees.  It was a cool place to stop

Rt 66 as we backtracked towards Chambliss

The Roadrunner Cafe, supposedly being rebuilt

On the road to Chambliss, there were literally miles of people writing their names in rock on the side of a berm that ran along the road.  I ran out of rocks, and enthusiasm

More random roadside attractions

We drove through a dozen more small and medium sized towns (Barstow, Victorville) as well as several nearly non-existent towns, before crossing the San Bernadino Mountains, the San Andreas Fault, and descending into San Bernadino and the Los Angelas basin. 

So far so good, it was only 3:00 and we had 30 miles to go to our hotel in Pasadena.  Then we hit the famous LA traffic.  Actually, I should say, the traffic wasn’t really that bad, but the old RT66 route took us right through every small town and EVERY TRAFFIC LIGHT between San Bernadino and Pasadena. There was a traffic light almost every block for 30 miles as we drove down Foothills Blvd, all seemingly timed to make us stop every 100 feet.  So it took us 3 hours to go that last 30 miles and we arrived at the Saga Motor Hotel tired and a bit cranky.

But, we were only 20 miles from Sanat Monica and the end of our journey, so instead of waiting until tomorrow, we decided to go tonight! We checked into our room, unloaded, and got back in the car. We wound our way through Pasadena, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Beveryly Hills, down Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard, through Los Angeles and on into Santa Monica.   

Finally we arrived at the end of our journey at Mel’s Diner at the corner of Lincoln Boulevard and Olympic Ave. We had a great big diner meal at Mels (which was fantastic) and took a drive past Santa Monica Pier. Not wanting to battle the crowds and the parking, we decided not to stop at the pier but returned to our Motor Hotel for the night, vowing to get an early start on our return journey (which will not be blogged!)

Thank you for following along our blog.  A few fun facts in case you would like to do this trip yourself: Route 66 is about 2440 miles long, which can vary widely depending on which routes you take.  We did it in 13 days for an average of 187 miles a day. Sue and I agree that we could have gone a little slower in the beginning to see more in Illinois and Missouri, and could have done more miles on some days once we got into Texas and Arizona, but overall you need 2 weeks to enjoy the trip.  We spent about $3800 on this trip not counting getting to Chicago and in Vegas, or about $300 per day. We were pretty frugal, but not cheap.  That broke down to about $100/day on food, $125/day on lodging, and $30/day on gas and the rest on tips, parking, entrance fees and souvenirs. Mind you, our car averaged around 38 MPG, so as they say, your mileage may vary.