So long USA...

So, it's done. We took a car in Chicago and drove all the way to the Pacific coast crossing this vast country. On the way, we changed from the green and tree-filled meadows in Illinois to the large farms in Oklahoma until gradually vegetation started to become scarce and desert surrounded us most of the way up to California. 

We've seen massive but enjoyable cities, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, breathtaking nature wonders like Monument Valley, the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon, historic places such as Pecos pueblo and Santa Fe, and even a volcano! Also, along the way, many tourist-focused attractions mainly related to Route 66, although nothing compared with the tourist haven of Las Vegas.

Regarding Route 66, it is not a straight-forward, specific path that you can follow and enjoy in itself. We are talking about over 3,000 miles of road that sometimes goes through interesting places and nice landscapes but, most of the time, it just runs parallel to the highway across deserted areas. Yes, it is nice to feel it's just the road, your car and you and all that, but that's ok for a few hours or even days. After a week of this, you just need something else. 

So, does Route 66 live up to the myth and hype that surrounds it?. Well, for us, not really. I mean, it's ok and we're glad we did it, and of course there are very good memories that we'll remember for many years. But we found that many of the places we enjoyed most were not part of the route. This is of course a matter of personal opinion, and there are probably hardcore Route 66 fans that will love travelling strictly along the route, but I wouldn't expect them to feel that way for more than a few days. What we think is that Route 66 is just a good excuse to visit many interesting places across USA, so it's better to adapt your itinerary to what you want to see rather than just following the road.

After so many days travelling and miles covered, it's time to say goodbye to all these things and places that impressed and surprised us and that we've talked about in previous posts. But also, to the small details that one can only experience travelling rather than being a tourist and that really give you a feel of where you are:  doughnuts of all kinds, massive take-away coffees, hot dogs, fried chicken, monstrous cars, fat people, cowboys, indian markets, elderly couples taking care of your laundry, dogs on top of trucks, flags everywhere, churches everywhere, scary motels (and smelly), pancakes for breakfast, etc, etc.

Thanks for having us USA!

It doesn't look so long on the map.

Los Angeles

When we were awarded this trip that we are now concluding, staying in Los Angeles was not in the agenda. In theory, we should have driven straight from Las Vegas to LA airport for our flight back to Spain. However, it didn't take too much time to decide that we would take advantage of the trip and stay for a few days to explore this city, which really feels more like many different worlds close to each other.

In this post, we will describe what we've seen of the city organized by areas rather than chronologically. Texts will be short, as these places are well known enough and otherwise this post would be endless...

The Griffith Observatory

Our first move in LA was... to get out of the city : ). The observatory at the top of Mount Griffith is the perfect viewing point to grasp the magnitude of this city and get a feeling of its location between the mountains and the Pacific ocean. From this beautiful park, one can see the whole city, from downtown far away to the Hollywood hills to the right of the photograph.

A panoramic view of Los Angeles from the Griffith Observatory

Hollywood

Our next destination had to be what makes Los Angeles such a popular and rich city: the Hollywood area. Far from the large movie studios that are situated on the outskirts of the city, this area remains now a tourist hot spot with the famous Chinese Theater, the Walk of Fame, etc. All crowded with tourists from all around the world and weird people making themselves seen and heard.

The Farmers Market

Halfway between Hollywood and Beverly Hills there is a popular and down to earth eating place: the Farmers Market. Rather than what its name would imply, this is now a collection of small shops and restaurants offering very diverse variety of foods, beverages and ingredients. The place is packed with locals having a quick lunch between shopping stops, and it's difficult not to find anything to your taste. The plaza next to the market provides a nice relaxing spot considering it is located in the middle of the city.

  

Beverly Hills

And now, one of the other things that make this city unique: the Beverly Hills area, home to some of the most wealthy people in California (not the super-rich, they live further away on the hills). There really isn't much to see, apart for driving around on quiet streets surrounded by big mansions, most of them hidden behind trees and high fences, and being overtaken by much more expensive cars than ours. I don't think there are many places where driving an Infiniti doesn't feel so special : (

 

The Beverly Hills town hall

One of the popular places in Beverly Hills is Rodeo Drive, a junction of street home to shops from some of the top names in fashion: Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Versace and some others that do not form part of our daily shop list. There are also a few good restaurants and, just like in the movies, they were staffed by wannabe actors looking for the right person to discover them:

Someday, he will be a celebrity and richer than us.

At 208 Rodeo, we enjoyed a very nice meal comprised of pork belly and beef steak, in a very posh environment but for a relatively reasonable price.

Venice canals

This is a neighborhood situated on the Westside of Los Angeles. It is known for its canals, beaches and circus-like Ocean Front Walk. We really enjoyed walking trough the canals in a beautiful Sunday morning, it was very peaceful. The houses were very stylish and the waterfront patios were very well decorated, we certainly wouldn´t mind to live there, though writing this post we found out that these houses have an average price of around 2 million dollars, no wonder that we liked them that much. Also, most of the houses had their own private deck with a canoe or a boat tied up.

 The canals of Venice 

The Enterprise spaceship decorated with Lego pieces

Canoe in the Venice canals tied to a small dock

Venice Beach

Venice Beach includes the beach, the promenade that runs parallel to the beach "Ocean Front Walk", Muscle Beach, the handball courts, the paddle tennis courts, Skate Dancing plaza, the numerous beach volleyball courts, the bike trail and many businesses.

Ocean Front Walk

World smallest front yard

Some of the weird or artist people on the Venice Boardwalk

Los Angeles Pueblo

The Los Angeles Plaza Historic District, also known as El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park, is a historic district located at the oldest section of Los Angeles. This is the area where the City of Los Angeles originated. There are historical homes built over 100 years ago to recreate what it originally looked like. It's like being in "little Mexico". There are also handicrafts, Mexican restaurants, food carts (the tacos looked very tasty). In general, a good atmosphere.

Mexicans enjoying themselves

The gazebo in the center of the Plaza,
site of many festivals and celebrations,
 here representing the life of Jesus Christ

Malibu

Though it does not form part of Los Angeles, Malibu beach is a popular beach resort for people who wants to get away from the big city, specially for surfers. Malibu lies about one hour drive north, depending on the traffic, which can be pretty heavy. This is a less populated area and it feels more natural. Dolphins are supposed to be seen every now and then from Point Dume (below), but we weren't so lucky.

The long and sandy Malibu beach invites to sunbath and go for a swim in the Ocean, although water was quite chilly at this time of the year. A very nice place to wait for sundown...

La Brea tar pits

Another unexpected landmark in the city of Los Angeles is the Hancock Park, home to La Brea tar pits: a series of ponds made up of oil and tar oozing from the earth below and where fossilized animal bones sometimes are found. The oily smell is noticeable as soon as you are close to the pits, but this is definitely something to be seen.

Santa Monica

Finally, another famous location in Los Angeles: Santa Monica. Although this is officially not part of the city of LA, but a city on its own, it is difficult to notice where one city ends and the other starts. Apart from the Santa Monica beach, a long and wide beach which becomes crowded during the weekends, an interesting site is the Harbor. Here there is an amusement park open all year around, and several cafes, ice cream parlors, small shops, etc.

The weather wasn't the best when we visited the harbor. Actually, it was damp and a bit cold, so we couldn't see the beach in all its glory. However, this was an unmissable stop, since this is where Route 66 ends, as a sign reminded us. It was easy to forget the reason of this trip (at least the official reason) was driving along Route 66, but finally, after almost 3,500 miles, we managed to reach our final destination. 

After a cold and wet start in a city we really appreciated, Chicago, it was only fair to finish again wet and cold in another city we enjoyed a lot.

As the Californian band The Doors used to sing... This is the end...

We made it!

Day 12: From Las Vegas (NV) to Los Angeles (CA)

3230 miles driven so far

Today we started the last journey on our trip to the West Coast. We could barely remember that just over a week ago we were in Chicago, enjoying the big city and not very sure about what we would find on the road.

Again, we had to head back to Route 66, as Las Vegas is not part of this route, although most people comes here anyway on their way to California. Instead of taking the fast way along Interstate 15, we decided to take up the "scenic" route, which goes through the Mojave desert, a really unique place.

Just before leaving Las Vegas, we stopped at one of the many outlet centres that spread across USA, just to realize that we couldn't understand what the fuzz was about with this kind of places: high prices, lack of variety, and in general nothing to write home about.

After this small disappointment, we got on our trusty Infiniti, with which you can never go wrong XD, and back on the road. When you do this trip, you are strongly advised to fill your tank gas, and it's easy to see why: there are very few gas stations until you are relatively close to Los Angeles, so it's better not to risk running out of gas in the middle of the dessert.

The road started out pretty dull from the beginning: desert and more desert with very little vegetation and no populated places:

The road to Mojave desert

However, the Mojave desert, even though it is still a desert, was much more interesting. The road crosses through endless rows of specimens of the Joshua tree, overall giving it an eerie feeling accentuated by the fact that we couldn't see anybody else around for many miles.

Joshua trees in Mojave desert

More surprisingly, more or less in the center of the desert, which is a National Park, lies the Kelso Depot, a former railroad depot that supported rail workers, passengers and locals during the first half of the 20th century. It almost comes as a shock, after many miles of desert, to find this oasis-like place, with a remarkable Spanish colonial building in it. The place is now a restaurant and museum, and definitely worth a stop.

The Kelso Depot in the middle of the Mojave desert.

Several miles later, we were finally back on route 66, now on Interstate 40 on our way down to the Pacific coast. Here, the landscape was again featureless, except from the occasional train running parallel to the highway, or weirder things such as people literally carrying their homes with them. 

Before leaving the peaceful desert and entering into the traffic madness that spreads a hundred miles from LA, we couldn't help stopping at Peggy Sue's 50's Diner: a quaint place with extravagant 50's and 60's decoration well worth a quick stop to enjoy a refreshing shake (careful, they are quite large!).

It's easy to be distracted by the decoration...

Soon, the road started to demand a more careful driving and more attention from the driver. Two lanes quickly became three, and then four and then five, and the traffic density quickly grew causing intermitent stops and traffic jams as we entered into the outskirts of Los Angeles. And this started to happen still one hundred miles from LA downtown!

Finally, we were able to see the skyscrappers that conform LA's downtown, well distinctive from the flat surroundings. The fast change of scenery, to one of the most densely populated areas in USA, mixed with the feeling that our long trip was coming to an end and with the excitement of arriving to one of the most popular cities in the world. Although the traffic around us didn't give many chances to think about all this...

Fortunately, our TomTom performed really well in these trying times, and we reached our destination in the Venice area without too many difficulties apart from a bit of a delay.

No time for too many pictures when you are entering Los Angeles

Just before the night fell, we arrived at our apartment in Venice and spent the final part of the day settling in and preparing for our last days in USA, aiming to make the most of our short stay in LA.

Day 11: Las Vegas

Being in Las Vegas represented a dramatic change of scenery. In one day, we replaced extensive, completely natural and unspoiled landscapes with probably the most surrealistic and artificial place in the world. Suddenly, in the middle of the desert, a massive city sprouts where you can find practically anything you might need to entertain yourself. You really feel like in another world, isolated from the rest of the planet.

Las Vegas attractions lie mainly along The Strip, an almost 7 km long avenue surrounded by hotels, casinos, restaurants, shops, weapons advertisements and people handling flyers for call girls. So yes, anything to amuse yourself.

A hotel in Las Vegas is a microcosm in itself. The basement is filled with casinos, bars, restaurants, shops, gyms, spas and, of course, a chapel in case you urgently need to get married. This was the view of the ground floor of Luxor hotel from the 26th floor:

You don't even need to get out of the hotel!

This meant that it could take you up to 15 minutes to get from your room to the street, crossing the always crowded gambling tables and rows of slot machines.

After a much needed rest, at around 11.00 am we were finally ready to explore the city. The plan was to walk along The Strip, but we went to pick up some things from the car before. Once at the car, we couldn't resist taking the car and driving around instead of walking, in true American fashion. So, we drove to the opposite end of The Strip and went for a stroll to visit the most popular sights.

A weird thing in Las Vegas is that you don't feel too surprised. Sure, it's a whole experience to see all the fake monuments and massive hotels, and the sheer amount of man-made landmarks around, but you can not escape the feeling that you've seen it all before in countless movies and TV shows. At least that was what we felt once in there. It was lacking the wow factor we found at Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon. Still, something worth seeing.

Here's a sample of the thing you can find around The Strip: 

Inside Caesar's Palace

A view of The Strip

The Bellagio Fountains

Prada and Louis Vuitton shops form part of a high class shopping centre,
just opposite the Harley Davidson Cafe

The Venice Hotel from outside

Inside the Venice Hotel. Yes, this is real...

Even with all the things going on during the day, Las Vegas really shines at night, and not just because of the fact that the whole city is illuminated. The entertainment and party atmosphere steps up a gear and the sidewalks and streets become crowded with hen and stag parties, students, tourists from around the world, newly weds and just-divorcees recovering from their break-ups.

At the end of Las Vegas boulevard lies Las Vegas downtown, where one can find the iconic Fremont street. This is where the first casinos were built in the mid 50's and the origin of the vice industry in this city. Walking around Fremont street is a more intense experience, as this pedestrian street is packed with casinos, restaurants, live concerts, all kind of attractions, street artists, beggars and weird people in general. The whole street is also covered with a large display where a music and video show is played every hour.

Fremont street: home of the original Las Vegas experience

After a long, intense and odd day, we finally drove back to the Luxor hotel along Las Vegas boulevard. The whole way back, driving past the most famous buildings and landmarks in Las Vegas was an appropriate ending to this break from the desert, as tomorrow's journey involved a lot of travelling across unpopulated lands as well.

Las Vegas boulevard (The Strip) at night.

Obviously, we couldn't leave Las Vegas without trying our luck at one of the ever-present slot machines. After spending almost $1.50, we didn't get rich at all, so we had to continue our journey without changing our plans.