We spent a few hours in Needles regluing my rearview mirror to the windshield. Through the heat and the air conditioner and the bumpy drive, it just fell off into my lap as we crossed the Colorado River. The first place we hit was a repair shop in the outskirts of Needles. First, you have to understand that Route 66 is usually either the access road or it is the "Business Route" off the freeway. The "Business Route" does not take you through the "best" part of cities....there are a great deal of pawn shops, boarded-up buildings, people standing around drinking something out of brown paper bags, and loan/check cashing shops. The garage had a fading paint-peeling sign which said, "The Two Guys Garage." We stopped.......no one came out to help us. I got out of the car and headed to the garage area. Inside there were five guys standing around a car, talking. All sound stopped as they turned to look at me. I looked back at them for a moment and then said, "The sign says 'Two Guys,' not 'Five Guys.' It isn't good business to lie." That broke the ice and they were more than willing to help me.....by pointing out the car parts store about six blocks down the road. Good luck have a great drive and they turned back to their car and started chatting again.

The most important place I wanted to see was the Bagdad Cafe in the middle of the desert. I knew the building itself had fallen down, but there was supposedly still a sign that said "Bagdad Cafe." There is something about driving across the desert on an old road - many places not refinished in many years - with nothing....and I mean nothing nada zero around except a little ground cover and the mountains far off in the shadowy distance. As it started toward darkness, we could see a huge twister sand storm to our left (probably about 40 miles away) and a horrible rain storm to my right (about 30 miles away according to the radio). I know what a flashflood is like in the desert. The road dips up and down as you thump thump thump along the way; we could see where many places had washed out from previous flashfloods. But with the sun against the dusty windshield hiding the view, we continued our search for the Bagdad.

We stopped at the wide place along the road. There was a tree. There was a cleared place. There was no longer even a sign that said "Bagdad Cafe." We hummed the song and drove on through Amboy (a gas station/cafe/motel kinda place) into Barstow. Barstow....another wide place in the road that smells like gasoline :)

I grew up in Southern California and followed Route 66 all my life. We left the route for a few hours to see my mom, only to return to Foothill Blvd (Route 66) to finish the drive.

We wanted to get all the way to the Santa Monica Pier that day. California has restored the highway very well and has excellent markings. Through East L.A., and onto Santa Monica Blvd. We, of course, had to play Cheryl Crow's All I Wanna Do a couple of times....but with the traffic and the heat and the people and the crawling along.....a couple times was more than enough. Santa Monica Blvd is a long short stretch of the route.

And then......there it was. The Pacific Ocean. The pier. The park. The end of the trail. There is a plaque at the beach that says "the Will Roger's Highway.....this Main Street of America - Highway 66 - was the first road he traveled..." We had finished following our dream roadtrip.

As we ate dinner outside at a sidewalk cafe overlooking the beach, I noticed two men walking by who were wearing t-shirts that said, "The RoadKill Cafe," which is a restaurant along the route so I called after them. They had also just finished driving the route. They were from Germany and had always wanted to see this true picture of America. We chatted for awhile, comparing adventures - did I stop and chat with Lucille in Oklahoma? Did I see any drunk Indians in Gallup (Gallup has a higher rate of alcoholism than any other place per capita; it is where the Pueblos trade their goods and the money is high for the Indians. They arrest more people each night than most major cities do per week)? Did I see the Paco's Monument? Did I eat at Mr. D'z?

Ori and I parted in Santa Monica. Her sister and family lives there and after visiting for a short while, I wanted to hit the highway.

As I drove back to my mom's for a few days, knowing I would be helping her start to pack, to close up the house my father built before I was born, I smiled at the past 10 days of total freedom. A taste of the past. A tiny feeling of the hopes that the people of the Great Depression felt as they headed west. A glimpse of the roots of my people, my past. And I sang: