Day 12, Thursday, September 5, 2019
Today was an eventful day. It all started with hitting the road at 7:30am to head to LAX to pick up Carm. Of course, her flight decided to land half an hour early and since it is rush hour in CA, what could have been a 1 hour and 15 minute ride, took almost 2 ½ hours. In the drive to the airport, I thoroughly enjoyed taking advantage of the carpool lane. Being able to use that certainly saved us a bunch of time. I did use my out-of-state plates as an excuse for driving like an occasional idiot (especially at the airport), but I did not care.
We got Carm without any problems and headed to Santa Monica pier. Again, traffic is a lovely thing and it took us over an hour to go just a few miles. But, we made it the and stood under the “End Route 66” sign. We finally did it! We made it to the end of Route 66!!! 12 days and 2500+ miles. It was such an exhilarating experience to know that we accomplished it and saw SO much of our beautiful country. Of course, we had to get photos of Mom and me under the sign showing we finished, but then we also had to get a picture with Mom and Carm because now their trip back was starting.
Before leaving the pier, we stopped into Bubba Gumps for brunch. Our waiter, Ray, was awesome and hilarious. We had an amazing view and a delicious and filling meal. It was needed because our next venture is heading to San Diego.
On the way to SD, we were going to stop to visit cousins. Of course, everything in CA is slow-going, so it took much longer than anticipated to get to Brian and Kristen’s. Adding on to that, getting into their place was a challenge in and of itself. I’m used to gated communities because of other family and friends, but I’ve never had to turn over my driver’s license and my plate information along with the name and address of the person I’m visiting. Before we can even get to those steps though, the gate keeper had us sitting waiting for 5 minutes while she futzed around trying to sort out a delivery truck situation two lanes over. It was such a process!
Finally, though we got to Brian & Kristen’s. We haven’t seen them since their wedding five years ago, but in true Italian form, the food, wine and conversation were plentiful. We could not stay too long though, since we still had a good hour and a half drive the rest of the way down to San Diego. The visit was short, but it was so good that we even had that much time to spend together.
The final stretch down San Diego was easy. It helped that it was around 9pm when left, so the traffic was a minimum. After another long day of driving, I was ready to crawl into bed without even changing clothes.
Definitely sleeping in.
Journey On 