The trek. Part 3.

The people that live near Route 66 don't realize how cool it is to live near Route 66. It's really cool. Main Street of America. The Mother Road. Hip enough to have a song, tv show, and animated motion picture about a ROAD. That's one magnificent road. 

The last day of our ridiculous/astonishing drive began in a national forest, which didn't disappoint. Then we entered California, which was pretty anticlimactic if I'm being honest. I kind of imagined flashing lights and palm trees and lots of Brad Pitt lookalikes waiting just for me. But it was a desert. An absurdly, amazingly hot desert known as the Mojave where all you need is a Dairy Queen attached to a gas station to establish a town and the temperature doesn't get below 99 degrees. Mom did have a surprisingly good time finding dust devils, though.

We got to our destination, Long Beach, California not a minute too soon. 

We went out on a limb and found "the best Airbnb in downtown Long Beach" (according to the owners) and hastily found District Wine. Good place, good wine, and two girls who were a tiny bit nervous to walk a couple blocks in a big city but pulled our shoulders back and looked like we belonged there.
 And we did.