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.