Out on the road nice and early Rosie and the Operator were heading for Victorville, the last leg of our short journey on Route 66. We followed the painted shields on the road out of Barstow and headed an hour north. The sun was getting higher and the temperature starting to rise and it was only 9.00am.
We pulled into Emmie Janes Holland Diner which is a small basic diner from the 50s. The place was packed which boded well for a good breakfast. Half the cafe was full of bikers who were taking advantage of the beautiful Saturday morning and had come for an early morning ride and breakfast. This cafe had been in the same family since 1958, it was spotless and slick, Brian and his wife Shawnee run the diner now from Mum and Dad who founded it and their daughter works there too. They asked us to sign their guest book as we had come from so far away. They were lovely!
After breakfast we went to the Victorville Route 66 Information centre and had a chat with the guys there, once again, fine passionate members of the 66 federation keeping the road alive, very interesting stop. On the barren desert highway Rosie was to look out for Elmers Place…a bizarre eclectic collection of sculptured ‘stuff’ in the desert….I didn’t really know what to expect. But it wasn’t hard to miss….
Gleaming and shining in the morning sun was a weird forest of bottles….we hopped out of the car and Rosie wasn’t sure if we were allowed into the yard…The Operator said the gate was open so in we went. It was like walking in a surreal dream bordering on creepy nightmare, yet you had your mouth open in amazement. The sun was glinting off the bottles, squeaks and squeals of rusting machinery moving in the gentle breeze, hanging garden tools dangling in the air in front of you and you walked deeper and deeper into the garden.
Then an old chap with a long white beard came out of a shed and said howdy, this was Elmer. We started chatting about how he came about this place and his collection. He said he had lived in the desert all his life and had worked up the road in the cement factory for 36 years until it closed 9 years ago. As a hobby he used to go digging in old mine refuse dumps….this is where he found all his bottles and sometimes people leave them at the gate as well. Over time he had collected bit and pieces of machinery, tools and cars and incorporated them in the garden. Out of the quarter acre forest he showed us the first one he ever made back in ’68 and how he found a whole stack of silver pennies in a dump…..he then stuck them on the back of a sink….go figure. We left a donation in his tip box of which he ‘thanked us very much as he was on the welfare and his wife is very sickly and we have no medical’. What a lovely guy, his trees were beautiful, I can see a spot in my garden for one right now…he is an artist and he doesn’t even know it…that’s route 66.
We turned towards LA and away from the Mother Road with regret, we were back on the Freeway and skirting the City of Angels, the road heading north with us had eight lanes and it was bedlam. As soon as we hit the hinterland of LA the smog settled in…oops, you are not aloud to call it smog, it is a dirty yellowish hazy layer of low cloud that the coasters here call the ‘Marine Layer’, the dampness of the ocean meets the warm air coming off the land blah,blah…how come we don’t get it? The sun disappeared and it got cooler by 15F. The highway was easy to negotiate and after 2 hours we turned off back into the countryside and navigated to the town of Solvang. Only in California would they have a Danish themed town in close proximity to the coast. The Danes settled the area in 1911, they bought with them their unique skills in baking, cooking, brewing and farming. In the 1960s the town was remodelled to look a wee version of its European big brother….all with American over the topness. This town is perfect….every building exudes
olde worlde charm, and I mean every building, motels, houses and shops are all built to code in a clean bright fashion. They even have 2 windmills! And the Apple Strudel…was to die for. We camped for the night here, our driving day was over by about 1.30 so it was nice to kick back for the afternoon, we wandered around the town and found a nice Danish Micro Brewery and sampled some ales and sausage in the evening sun.
Rosie is a Middle Aged Kiwi who is about to embark on a twelve month adventure of a lifetime, travelling The World with her trusty, loyal sidekick The Operator. In search of adventure, culture, new taste experiences and world wide 'happy hours', Rosie's journals chronicle their travels and experiences.
Rosie had a lightbulb moment. Within that flash of clarity came the realisation that time was spinning out of control and passing her by. So, armed with the confidence, means, ability and a new found passion for life, Rosie and her trusty, loyal sidekick The Operator have devised THE PLAN.
ROSIE – Continually travels The World for the next 12 months.
THE OPERATOR – Works his 28 day roster and meets Rosie somewhere in The World to explore the area together for his 28 days off. Repeat x6.
ROSIE – Will then stay in one spot of the country they have been exploring for 28 days of local immersion whilst The Operator returns to work.
THE OPERATOR – Certainly has the shorter end of the stick xxx
Join me as I journal my middle aged musings on our day to day travels, culture, food and the quest for the ultimate world wide happy hour.
and it was only 9.00am.
