Rancho Cucamonga,CA to Needles, CA (Tues. July 20)

Up and out on "THE" Road finally! We were excited to get going. We set the GPS to start us at Rancho Cucamonga, a town not far from our campground. The GPS quickly had us on Route 66 without us even realizing it at first. We found out a couple of things very quickly. One is that many cities and towns are really into promoting the old 66 and they have great signs along the way to help keep you on track. Second is that the guy on the pier in Santa Monica last night did not know what he was talking about. We had a blast working our way through California!!! Besides Rancho Cucamonga we passed through the cities of Upland, Fontana, Rialto, San Bernadino, Cajon Summit, Victorville, Helendale, Barstow, Daggett, Newberry Springs, Ludlow, Bagdad, Amboy (among others) finally landing in Needles.

We saw some fun things along the way and learned a few things too. Here is just some of them:

In Rialto there is the Wigwam Motel where the rooms are all wigwams. It is a pretty well know spot for anyone who knows anything about Route 66 (and even if they don't). In order to get good pictures we had to pull into the parking lot of a plaza across the road. We discovered an unexpected pleasure in the plaza. A very old, very small drive thru stand that was around from way back in the hey day that is now a BBQ place. Colin was taking pictures of it when the owner came out and asked him where he was from . . . she gave him a menu to take along with him. Well, one look at the menu we were all back there for pork sandwiches for lunch. It was the best BBQ pork we had ever eaten!!! Of course they didn't explain that a pork sandwich was about 6 ribs (meat still on the bone mind you) and two pieces of white bread. You then have to rip the meat off the bones and put it between the bread yourself. By the time we were done we could have all used a bath!!! But none of us were complaining because the food was that good. The sandwich came with some really good, mildly spicy, baked beans. They were so tasty but not much of them got eaten as we were too full from the sandwiches. Oh yeah, this place had no tables so we sat on the curb outside and ate them. I am sure people driving by must of thought we were nuts.

Near a place called Helendale there is a forest made out of thousands of bottles welded to metal frames with many other interesting decorations mixed in.

We saw areas where you could see an older alignment of 66, the one we were driving on and the interstate all at the same time. It was really interesting to see. Reminded us of the movie Cars where Sally and Lightning McQueen are standing up on a hill near an abandoned hotel watching the cars and trucks whip by on the interstate below.

We stopped at a place called the Bagdad Cafe. It was used in a movie by the same name (though the old, deserted city of Bagdad is actually several miles east of here). It is in the middle of nowhere in the dessert. Somewhere you would never find by mistake. And at first somewhere you might be afraid to go in. We just stopped to check it out and have something to drink. It turned into a great visit with the three people working when we arrived. They were so interesting and had so many stories to share. They said they get so many foreigners that probably less than 5% of their daily visitors are American. They gave us a guest book to sign. We flipped through pages and pages and almost every entry was in some foreign language. While we were there the guy who was working asked the boys if they had ever seen the inside of a jukebox and seen how it worked. They of course had not so he proceeded to demonstrate. They thought it was one of the coolest things they had ever seen.

There are a lot of train tracks out here and a lot of trains use them. Boys can be very entertained by counting the cars on the trains. And there are a lot of cars on those trains!!!

Route 66 is very deserted in many places. We drove for ever through the dessert and saw very few other cars. The good thing about that is when the boys say "Wow, that is cool. Stop so we can take a picture" you can stop right in the middle of the road and not worry about it.

There are way too many cool things to take a picture of as you go along . There is no way you can get them all. By the time the boys see some of them we are already past and it is hard to stop the car with a camper on the back fast enough. So we have sadly missed some good ones.

It is taking way longer to cover a distance than I thought it would (see above!!) It is going to be tough to do everything we want to do in the time we have left.

Desserts have great sunsets.

Desserts get very hot. 113 degrees today. We now get to sleep in a camper with no air conditioning at about 100 degrees!!! Not going to be a fun night!!