We made it!

After 2 weeks on the road and 3,495 miles today we reached Santa Monica Pier, the end of Route 66.

But first let's go back to our last stop on Route 66, to Barstow,  CA. The day before we arrived at our hotel at around 2.30pm with plenty of time to recover from driving 200 miles through the desert in 120F. Luckily the hotel had a pool we were looking to soak in after a hard day, but only after the sun had come down and temperatures normalized. The last pool we jumped into had bathtub quality, that is, it was very warm. So we relaxed, wrote some emails, went out to dinner.

By this time the pool area was shady and we got ready for a swim. Some kids were frolicking in the pool. We jumped in and almost got freeze shocked. The water had a temperature of an Alaskan creek. We should have taken the advertisements we saw here serious. They do promise a "cool pool", instead of a heated one. So we kept the swim short and made a note about checking water temperatures before the sun goes down.

Today we had an early start at 6.30am  for our last leg to Santa Monica. After breakfast in the hotel we enjoyed the cool morning air while riding on the Interstate until Cajon Junction, CA. At that point we diverted from Route 66 again in favor for the gorgeous CA-2 which leads through the heart of the Angeles National Forest. 38 mi of curves, curves, curves combined with great views and a climb up to almost 8000 ft elevation. The air was crisp, clean and cool.

Then we descended into L.A. We rode through Hollywood, glanced at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and finally reached the goal of our 2-week journey: Santa Monica Pier. A low level fog cover was lying over the pier, thus is was pretty cool. Being in elated spirits nevertheless, we took the obligatory photo in front of the "End of the Trail"-sign.

At the Route 66-booth we also received the official certificate for having completed the "Mother Road".

We dipped our toes into the Pacific, and then took off again to head across L.A. to Santa Fe Springs where we were supposed to drop off the bikes to have them shipped back home. However, Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic in L.A. is not fun. But after watching other bikes zoom by we quickly adopted the local custom of "lane-splitting": You overtake all the cars by squeezing through between them. Here in CA this is legal, and (most of) the cars are used to it and even make extra room for the bikes. Nevertheless we had to be extremely alert. Everything went fine and we reached the shipper terminal in one piece!

There we checked in the bikes which were loaded each on its own pallet. That entire process took about 2 hours, and after that we took a cab which brought us to our hotel in Cosa Mesa right next to the Orange County Airport from which we will fly home tomorrow.

We celebrated the happy and safe completion of our great adventure by eating at a great sushi place just across the hotel.

That's it - another thing to cross off the bucket list! We thoroughly enjoyed getting to see so much of the U.S., from small towns to massive landscapes, and it's even more fun on the bikes!