Bottles and rain

EUGENE, OR — Barstow, CA, is a small desert town 130-plus miles from the beaches of Santa Monica and the western terminus of Route 66. On a cool, cloudy Tuesday morning I checked out of my motel in Barstow and loaded up the Mini for a day trip that would take me out of the Mojave Desert and into the urban sprawl of Los Angeles.

By day’s end I found I really preferred the sun- and wind-beaten one-horse towns of the Mojave to the glitz, beaches and resorts of L.A. Maybe it was all that rain in Santa Monica.

Heading out of town I snapped a picture of this sign for The Two Sixes Company.

Further along the road I discovered this unusual combination of iconic symbolism…

…before stumbling onto Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Ranch outside Helendale.

Taken aback by the sight of all those “bottle trees,” I pulled the car to the side of the road and got out for a closer look. The wind was kicking up a fuss and I could actually hear it whistling through the dusty bottles, evincing an eerie theremin-type sound.

Later I read that Long had inherited the bottles from his father. At first not knowing what to do with them, he ultimately decided to weld to old posts the “branches” on which the bottles hang, creating a fascinating work of folk art along the Mother Road.

Ornamenting Long’s steel-and-glass forest are relics of Route 66 and memorabilia from his childhood, seemingly placed with purpose…

…as well as this simple handwritten marker of infamy.

Arriving in Victorville, I stopped for breakfast at a roadside diner that is the real deal–eggs prepared the way you want them and served with fresh coffee on tidy, worn countertops. The locals there are friendly, too.

Desert living can be hard, as this pawn shop makes plain.

Not long after Victorville you leave the Mojave Desert and begin swinging through towns whose mere names are staples of pop culture.

San Bernardino…

and Pasadena…

… are separated by lesser-known neighbors.

As the traffic thickened along the last miles of Route 66 in Los Angeles County, so too did the gathering clouds. Soon the rain came–like a person spraying it and not saying it at first, and then more emphatically, even torrentially, startling the streets, lawns, rooftops and windshields of drought-infested Santa Monica.

Driving through Monrovia, I was treated to one more nicely restored gas station…

…and, across the street, one church’s testament to life…

…before the Mother Road herself vanished amid rainy, bewildered Santa Monica at the intersection of Lincoln and Olympic boulevards.

Next week: Some thoughts in retrospect. Thanks for reading!