I fell asleep last night before I could finish this post. It was a very eventful day!

After we left Universal Studios, we went on a driving tour of Los Angeles. First stop, Hollywood. The streets are not paved with gold, but they are filled with street vendors and homeless. I think there are more homeless in LA than in NYC but I don’t know for sure.

I saw some stars…..on the sidewalk, of course! Lol! The sidewalks where the stars lie are so nice! We drove by the TCL Chinese Theater which was pretty cool looking. I toke a pic of an LA Fitness in LA because it was so literal. 🤣

The palm trees were very impressive, lining the roads and lighted. I think the palm trees in California are better than the ones in Florida. They’re definitely taller.

We passed the sign for Beverly Hills, saw some houses we couldn’t afford to look at and figured we’d continue the trend of things we couldn’t afford by turning onto Rodeo drive.

WOW, was the first word that came to mind after turning on Rodeo. We saw every expensive store you could name. I’ve never been in those stores back home so I wasn’t tempted to jump out of the car. We drove by the Beverly Wiltshire Hotel, which is gorgeous!

We were driving down Rodeo with some very impressive and expensive cars. You wouldn’t have known it though because of detuned catalytic converters. Basically, my Tahoe sounds the same as a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Eddie even saw a car he’s never seen before. It was some kind of unique model of Mercedes AMG with a matte gold paint job. We saw lots of custom paint jobs, lots of purple Ferraris.

I think we drove on the Pacific Coast Highway, or we just saw the sign for it.

We finally made it to Mel’s Drive In. Eddie was in heaven! He jumped out of the car and started taking pictures! We both had to take a pic with the end of Route 66 sign. The inside of the diner was even more more impressive as the first thing we saw was the giant Route 66 fish tank that was featured on the TV show, Tanked (who’s shop we visited in Las Vegas).

The manager greeted us and we told him about our drive. Eddie spotted a shirt they had for sale that had none other than a yellow 32 on it. He showed the manager a picture of his car and the manager immediately grabbed the shirt from the cabinet and insisted Eddie have it, free of charge. He also loaded us up with pins and magnets. He was so interested in our trip.

We were seated and served right away. The food was delicious. Right after dinner the manager came back and gave us official Route 66 completion certificates. It was a pretty proud moment for both of us. It’s been a long journey, but we had an absolute time.

A little fun fact about the end of Route 66. Mel’s Drive In is the official end of Route 66. The brown signs we’ve been following this whole trip noting where the historical Route 66 road is, has an end sign at the intersection of Olympic and Lincoln, the corner of Mel’s Drive In. There is an “end of the trail” sign on the Santa Monica Pier because there’s a legend that states Route 66 doesn’t end until it reaches the sea. This is an unofficial sign and legend. You can believe what you want, but Eddie and I know we reached the official end of Route 66.