Route 66 - Day Nine - El Centro to Flagstaff (again)

Like Bob Seger, I too woke last night to the sound of thunder. A LOT of thunder! I've never heard that much thunder that close to me in my life. And it continued in the morning. The rain had briefly stopped in the morning, but came back with a vengeance when we were ready to leave. The town was flooded! Check out the vid of the road out of town:



Driving out of California, we stopped in Yuma, which, like Flagstaff, was more of a cool name than a place you'd actually want to stop in.

On to Fecility, California: the Centre of the World. At least, according to a guy who built a pyramid there and somehow got France and China to recognize it as such:



And a run-in with border patrol:



Exit 111: it was bound to happen - Ivan got pulled over by Arizona Highway Patrol. There were a few funny things about it:

Cop: How fast do you think you were going?
Ivan: I dunno, about 120?
Cop: ONE TWENTY?!
Jeff (to self): Convert to miles! Convert to miles!

What was funnier was the officer's last name:



The good news is that Ivan got off with a warning (I totally called it. The cop was ballbusting a bit, but was a young guy, and seemed nice). Once he issued the citation, I asked if I could take a picture of his nametag, since our boss has the same(ish) name.

He agreed, and then got a little chatty with us. His great-grandfather was from Maine, and moved down here.

Stopped at Carl, Jr's north of Tucson for lunch. Good burgers! I don't think this breaks the 'no fast food' rule, since it's a West Coast chain, and therefore exotic (I could be stretching it, but it makes sense to me).

We were about to head to Tombstone, when Nik texted, and said not to take the I-10 east of Tucson due to murders, carjackings, and general badassery. Apparently the Canadian government issued a travel advisory, and said avoid all non-essential travel from Tuscon to El Paso/Juarez.

I'm generally a risk-taker, and despite the warning, I was fine travelling that way. Ivan was not. I didn't blame him: after all, it's his car, and for me to talk him into going and something to happen to us or his car would not bode well.

So we headed north to Phoenix, and then to Flagstaff (note I wrote the earlier part of today's blog while on the road, unaware we'd end up in Flagstaff ever again. Ah, hubris!)

We're staying at the Arizonan Motel, which is run by a guy who used to live in Scarborough. Decent place, with renovations going on. And internet (whew). I believe with this post, I'm caught up to present! Hoorary!

Since we got in early, we ordered in from the New Jersey Pizza Company in Flagstaff. EXCELLENT pizza! So all was not lost by staying here. This 'za is comparable to a big city, professional pizza joint, and I'd honestly say one of the best pies I've ever had. We ordered mushroom, bacon, and pepperoni, and they threw on fresh herbs and very fresh tomato sauce. I just had a cold piece for breakfast, and it was still great!

Route 66 - Day Eight - Santa Monica to El Centro, CA

Our bad karma from the day before was momentarily stayed by a trip to Snug Harbor, a local diner, for breakfast. Friendly service and great food! They make a mean omelette (I had one with jack cheese and turkey chili. YUM!).

When we were done paying, Ivan & I realized we both were left with $1 to each of our names.

I stopped in at the Whole Foods Market next door to try to find Nik some hickory smoked salt, which I'd been looking for since Texas. No such luck.

We headed to the end of Route 66: Santa Monica and Ocean Blvds, and found both the marker and the (other) 'Route 66 ends' sign. Even though we were both crabby, we shook hands and got a pic. Hooray! Thus endeth the trip out.

Now, the trip back. More bad karma: Ivan found a parking ticket on the car when we walked back.

We headed to Sunset Blvd to drive and see some homes. Then we got on to Mulholland for a bit towards the Pacific, and saw more nice homes. We had lunch at a nice (albeit expensive) sushi resto on the Sunset Strip. We kept driving, caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, and headed out of town towards Yuma.

(note that the above narrative does not include the 90 minutes plus of bad navigation on my part, or the fact that Iv still wasn't feeling well due to the bad food at the Beaver St. Brewery back in Flagstaff. I'll stick to the positives)

Once we got out of town, the destination was San Bernardino for the unofficial McDonald's museum, located on the site of the original McDonald's. Great museum, albeit a big disorganized. It has a lot of old McDonald's toys, memorabilia, etc. that you may or may not remember from your youth. Here's a vid I shot in there:



We aimed for Yuma, but settled in El Centro: a hub town for SE California, with a lot of franchise restaurants. This was the first time for a while we got into a town early enough to feel like we had an advantage in finding a motel, especially since there were so many here, and most of them had a lot of vacancies. The Superstar Motel was the choice, mainly because we were superstars. And also because it was $45 and clean.

But no internet. Blargh!