Route 66 2015

Day 16: Needles (Californië) – Los Angeles (Californië)

The last long drive of our trip took us from Needles to Los Angeles. We should have arrived at the Best Western Plus Stovall’s Inn Anaheim around 2.30pm. But it wasn’t our day…

We almost had to take a detour of about 80km because the road was flooded. Two large pick-ups had already driven through the water, but we doubted if we could do it with our car. When we saw another car pass the water in the other direction we decided to try it. Luckily the water wasn’t as deep as it looked.

Then suddenly the road was closed.. We searched for an alternative route, but also that road was closed.. A second alternative took us around the closed roads and we could continue our drive.

We ate at McDonalds in Barstow before driving the last part of Route 66 before taking the interstate to Los Angeles.

Bad luck for the third time.. A traffic jam. We drove 25km in 2h30..

Normally we would go to Santa Monica before going to Hollywood for a concert of The Offspring, but since we arrived at the hotel 3 hours later than planned we went directly to Hollywood. And again we were in a traffic jam.

We bought a snack for dinner and headed to the Hollywood Palladium for the concert. We didn’t like the pre-show. The band F.E.A.R is old and the lead-singer had clearly overused his voice.. The Offspring was good, but a little dissapointing. They played to many songs one after another and had no interaction with the audience. The were a lot better when we saw them at Groezrock. And it was loud, very loud.

And yes, a traffic jam! at 12am!

Day 17: Anaheim (Californië)

Today we visited Disneyland! In 2012 we already visited both parks, so now we only went to Disneyland Park. It was hot and busy, but we could ride all attractions and see all shows we wanted to.

Day 18: Los Angeles (Californië)

On our last full day in the USA we drove the very last part of Route 66 to Santa Monica. We did it, we drove along Route 66, all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles!

We started the day in a nearby shopping mall and shortly after noon we drove to Santa Monica. And yes, even on a Sunday there are traffic jams in Los Angeles..

We made walk on the Santa Monica Pier to reach the official end of the trail.  From the pier we walked to Third Street Promenade for some more shopping.

We slept at the Crowne Plaza Los Angeles Airport.

Our trip was over and we could start preparing for the flights back to Belgium. It will be a short night, since we have to get up at 4am to head to the airport for our flight to Atlanta.

Day 19: Los Angeles (Californië) – Atlanta (Georgia) – Brussel

We flew with Delta Airlines. We were lucky. We were upgraded to economy plus on both flights since the airplanes weren’t fully booked and we had asked for an exit seat.

Back home we could start looking forward to our next trip, in March 2016: a cruise on the Navigator of the Seas from Fort Lauderdale to the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Haiti.