The Mother Road Part 6

Travels with Caroline and Party Research Part 6

We decided to tackle the last half of Route 66 in one trip.  As with the other sections we had to contend with the logistics of how to get to a starting point and either work our way to the end or home.  Like the Chicago to Joplin leg, we basically made this all important planning decision based on the 50^th anniversary sale at Southwest.  This meant we flew into Phoenix and drove out to Santa Monica to drive the second half of the Mother Road starting at its western end point and drive East to meet up with where we left off at roughly the midpoint. 

Before we hit the Pier to officially start our journey, we did stop for lunch at In and Out.   Yes, we know we have them in Texas, but we thought Caroline needed to officially hit a California In and Out, and she got a t-shirt, officially, marking a major goal of my teen life in California. 

Because we were driving this portion from west to east, our first stop was the end of the road: the Santa Monica Pier.  Like the beginning of the Mother Road, the end has had several locations over its history.  Unlike the beginning, it has moved dramatically.  It originally ended at the intersection of 7th and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. In 1936 the road was extended, so it officially ended at the corner of Olympic and Lincoln in Santa Monica.  Since the Mother Road has gained status as a tourist attraction in its own right, the Route 66 Association determined that the Pacific Ocean, and more specifically the Santa Monica Pier, was a much more celebratory end than the rather anticlimactic beginning of Highway 1.  I would definitely agree. Reaching the pier with all of its bright colors and carnival rides feels like you finally reached the party!  The one thing I can’t fathom is why they couldn’t get the sign right.  There are tons of Route 66 signs in the correct shape all over the pier, but the one that celebrates the end is just wrong. 

Before we could actually get to the Pier, we had to park.  Here’s a quick word of warning… just plan on paying for overpriced private parking.  Then, make it worthwhile and plan to stay for a bit.  

With its ferris wheel, bright yellow roller coaster, and festively decorated food stalls and shops the Santa Monica Pier is everything you would expect of a seaside amusement park or even a local carnival.  You half expect to see (name your favorite teen heartthrob) winning an oversized stuffed teddy bear for (name the cutest girl of the moment), and two cuddling together with the bear on the seat across from them as they sit high above the pier enjoying the ocean view from the top of the ferris wheel.  Then a tsunami hits the pier taking out most of the visitors and the frightened couple scream hoping that a ruggedly handsome firefighter will make it in time to save them and their stuffed bear from being swept into the ocean…You would not be wrong to feel that way, since the pier has been heavily featured in tv and movies since the 1930s.  Additionally, it was featured in the 2019  9-1-1 episode entitled Sink or Swim, which was the first thing I thought of when we got there.  

The Pier was brimming with people, but wasn’t as packed as I’m sure it would be on the weekend.  I don’t know if skateboards aren’t banned or if some people just don’t care, but we learned rather quickly to be on guard for skateboarders flying down the pier with varying levels of control.  If you’re hoping that hanging out on the pier is going to be an idyllic movie-like experience, you’ll be disappointed.  Caroline was hustled for $3, experienced the smell of pot, and was confronted with California homelessness in the 30 minutes we spent there.  The fella that got a very naive Caroline to give him $3 to help keep the “music” going, is rapper Black Nate Debiase.  He asked us where we were from and when we said Dallas, he said he was doing a show in McKinney.  What are the chances of that?  I have done some searching, and I can’t find where or when… but keep an eye out for him.  He was actually a nice enough fella.  

We left Santa Monica, and headed for our next stop in San Bernardino which is 76 miles and approximately 3 hours away.  With that Caroline experienced the “Real” California.  Our first stop in San Bernardino, was the Original McDonald’s Site and Museum.  This is the McDonalds that was created by Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1940 and was featured in The Founder (this actual building was not in the movie).  The building was purchased by a local chicken restaurant Juan Pollo (more on the chicken company in a later blog), and now serves as the company headquarters and a McDonald’s Museum.  We expected traffic, but not quite 3 hours of traffic to get to San Bernardino, so the museum was closed when we got there.  It’s surrounded by a bright red fence, but you can see old pieces of McDonald’s memorabilia including an Officer Big Mac playground piece and Ronald McDonald statue. The desert sun has started to take its toll on the pieces and the signage.  I found pictures of the large sign from 2019, and the last 2 years have not been kind to it.  It’s not like Albert Okura, the owner of Juan Pollo (as I said more on him later) to let the place fall into disrepair unless he is just done with San Bernardino, and we wouldn’t blame him.  We hopped out and took some VERY quick pictures.  If you do choose to hit this museum, I would make sure you didn’t have any valuables with you and definitely go early.  As Caroline would say this place is “Sketch”.

Our next stop in San Bernardino was the Wigwam Motel Number 7.  This was the first of 2 Wigwam motels that we visited on our trip. The original Wigwam Village was designed by Frank Redford and built in Horse Cave, Kentucky.  Redford built the first tee-pee shaped room units to surround the museum-shop he had built to display his collection of Native American artifacts in 1933.  He applied for and received a patent for the design in 1936.  Seven Wigwam villages were built based on his design between 1933 and 1949.  Several of the 7 Wigwam Villages were actually built as franchises, however, Redford built the San Bernardino village in 1949 for himself.  In case you were wondering, Redford knew that “Wigwam” was not the correct term for the design, however, he thought it sounded better than “Tee-Pee”.  

Wigwam Number 7 is one of the larger villages. It has 19 cone shaped buildings that are 32 feet high.  While they are shaped like a traditional tee-pee they have a poured concrete foundation, wood frame, and stucco exterior and interior walls.  After Redford’s death, the village fell into some disrepair and rooms were rented by the hour.  They were advertised with the slogan “Do It in a Tee-Pee”.  The sign is apparently still on the property, but we didn’t see it. (Okay, so we actually ended up with a picture of it hanging next to a sign I was actually trying to get a picture of.)  The motel was eventually purchased by new owners in 2003 who have worked diligently to fix it up.   In 2012 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The buildings look fresh and inviting.  They’ve added some modern fixtures to them including electronic key locks, wifi and tvs with “premium” channels.  In an attempt to give it a historic flare, they’ve added some “antique” cars to the decor.  If you consider its previous status being inline with the Knights Inn, the new owners have done a great job restoring this historic motel.  At the end of the day, this motel is still in a rough area of San Bernardino.  The back of the property could still use some work, and the neighborhood that is directly behind it, doesn’t seem interested in bringing tourists to the area.  If you really are interested in “doing it in tee-pee”, I would suggest making the trek to Holbrook, Arizona.  

Our last stop for the day was the Outpost Cafe in Oak Hills, California. The Outpost Cafe was established in 1961 along Route 66, and it has maintained that classic diner experience with the long eating counter and brown pleather booths.  They’ve added a small dining room that has more of a pleasant family restaurant experience with basic wooden tables and a large rock fireplace.  The menu is fairly traditional with a variety of sandwiches, hamburgers, and meats fried like chicken. They also serve breakfast all day, which made Caroline happy. While you wait you can check out the fun tale of the Father Guido, the O-P-Hew, and the creation of the first gas stop on the front of the menu.  

Despite its classic charm, the Outpost Café isn’t likely to show up on most people’s must do lists while traveling on Route 66.  Even with that we didn’t stumble upon it by accident.  Rather, the Outpost Café is part of the Lacey and Alex early relationship lore.  There wasn’t much in Ridgecrest, California by way of debate competitions or worthwhile shopping.  As a result, we traveled down this part of route 66 now I-15 (whatever the California name for it is) on a fairly regular basis. At this point, it seems like the story should go that we often stopped and shared a milkshake at the Outpost Café while staring longingly into each other’s eyes as only love struck teenagers can do.  But, that is not the case. In fact, until this trip, we’d never actually eaten at the Café. Instead, Alex liked to draw attention to the unassuming brown building next to the Outpost Café, The Outpost Wedding Chapel. The Wedding Chapel had a large billboard that boasted instant weddings with no waiting and no blood test (a work-around for California laws requiring a marriage license and, as it turns out, often not actually legal).  He took great joy in giving me a hard time that this is where we would get married, thus depriving me of my dream wedding (which was decidedly NOT at the Outpost Wedding Chapel).  Fifteen years later when we did decide to get married, we actually thought we might head to what was once the middle of nowhere in the California desert to tie the knot.  Unfortunately, we found the chapel was gone, and apparently so were a large number of marriage records.