On the trail of Easy Rider, in the southwest of the USA
The airport is quite big, the signs show us the way to immigration, there are two ways, if you have already been in the country you have to go to the right and if you want to enter the country for the first time you should go in the left queue.
Anyone who has filled out everything correctly on the questionnaire that is given to them on the plane will be allowed into the country after some identification measures. You should fill out the card in block letters and definitely legibly. The immigration officials are not necessarily the friendliest people, but if everything is OK, you will be welcomed.
But we see things in a relaxed manner, we have no time pressure and it is still early in the day. It is advisable to pocket a few dollars in advance, although a lot can be done using a credit card, but you can also pay for small things with dollars.
In Los Angeles there is always a hustle and bustle at the airport, somewhere you can always see a camera team waiting for the special star, the day before there was the Oscar ceremony on Hollywood Blvd., in this case the success rate is high, one of the stars is on airport.
Take the free shuttle to the hotel
Off we go, the luggage arrived quickly on the conveyor belt, now it's time to go to the hotel, there is a free shuttle service, we drove to the Holiday Inn Hotel , on Hawthorne Blvd. You should know exactly which Holiday Inn you want to go to , there are four of them in Los Angeles.
In our case we had a good 3-star hotel with breakfast and free WiFi.
Everything is clean, all the hotels on our tour had large king-size beds, they were far apart and were really good for sleeping.
In all the hotels on the Tchibo tour, we had very good and clean rooms, with shower, toilet, WiFi (free) and air conditioning. Except for Las Vegas, there is always a parking lot right in front of the door, that's an advantage, after all we move in and out almost every day.
But the first day isn't over yet, with a fresh shower we head to Hollywood Blvd in the late afternoon. into the city, we took bus number 212, the journey took around 1 1/2 hours, even though it was the direct connection, we got into rush hour, but we had the time.
It's very interesting to travel on public transport in foreign cities; that's where you get the most out of the population.
We were kindly invited to the Hard Rock Cafe on Hollywood Blvd., which the Hard Rock Cafe headquarters organized for us, the visit was really worth it.
Right in the center of the action is the Hard Rock Cafe, a nice big shop, the staff obviously have a dream job here, really cool people who really enjoy their work. Here we first enjoyed a decent steak, had a few nice beers and slowly we arrived in the States in our heads.
On big tours, a visit to a Hard Rock Cafe is always a must, somehow it has something to it, the connection to Harley-Davidson can also be found in the shop window. This is certainly also due to the fact that many rock stars have always had a connection to Harley-Davidson and still do today.
We took a few more 360° degrees here with the Panono Cam and after the meal and the T-shirt ritual we continued on Hollywood Blvd. to the Harley-Davidson Fashion Dealer, which is diagonally opposite.
Click on the button below to load the content from cloud.panono.com.
Normally in life we are always very tense, but as soon as we arrived at the hotel and at the latest when we picked up the Harley's from EagleRider, we were timeless!
There is no hour for the happy one! That is our motto on this dream tour!
“Whoever is happy doesn’t care about time; The moment we forget time, we are happy!”
This is the moment when your head has arrived on vacation! After breakfast, we drove to EagleRider at 9:00 a.m. I requested the shuttle service in advance on EagleRider's service number, we were told to take a taxi, they would charge up to 15.- Add $ US dollars. That was good for us in that a taxi was there within 10 minutes, the trip to EagleRider including the tip cost $10, which we really liked.
Our Harley's are now being picked up from EagleRider in Los Angeles!
When we arrived at EagleRider, we met Jason, a really friendly employee who knows his job. He explained everything to us very well, as is usual with a rental company, he goes through the insurance with you.
You have to compare exactly what you already have included with Tchibo and what you don't. The question arises as to whether you want to insure your vehicle against flat tires and against damage to other people's vehicles that you could cause in an accident.
When it came to flat tires, we were wide-eyed at first, but the insurance is valid; we've seen them pushing their bikes somewhere in the middle of nowhere; changing a tire like that could potentially be expensive.
Our Harley's had very good tread, but we also saw a few cars with flat tires on the tour. Luckily we didn't have this problem, but we had a bit more peace of mind with the tire insurance. A tire repair kit might also be of some help here, because sometimes you're really out of the way and your cell phone doesn't always have reception.
The handover protocol is done together with the EagleRider employee. We made sure that every scratch was noted. How meticulously this is ultimately handled certainly depends on the employees. Sometimes you have to ask yourself what people are doing with the bikes , when there are scratches in the paint in the most unlikely places.
The Harley's are probably built between 2012 and 2015. The newer ones already have the BoomBox II installed, which is a very good advantage on the trip if the navigation and information system is already in place. After plenty of coffee and a tour of the store, we headed back to our hotel.
On the way to the Hollywood sign
Yes, now we started, the big permanent grin on our faces, we made our way across Los Angeles to the Hollywood sign. That's easier said than done, somehow you get the feeling that the Americans all just drive cars, the streets are full and every traffic light is ours. The temperatures are rising, we have good t-shirt weather in March, let's see if it continues like this.
After hours we arrived at a good spot at the Hollywood sign, somewhere between Mulholland Hwy and Mt Lee Dr. you have the best view. Maybe we should have driven to Santa Monica to the end point of Route 66 first, because somehow we've already lost so much time in the city of 10 million that it could get tight, after all we still have to go to Barstow to our next hotel.
After driving through Beverley Hills, we finally reached the Route 66 sign in Santa Monica in the afternoon, the sign is in the middle of the ocean pier. There's a lot going on here, lots of tourists, the restaurants mostly serve fish. Here you will also find the Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant, from the film “Forrest Gump”
Now we head to Barstow, to Route 66
After various photos, we now continue towards Barstow, well strengthened we want to go through the mountains on the Angeles Crest No. 2, a great route that also allows a view over Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, it was already getting dark at 7 p.m. and there wasn't much left for us to see, so we unfortunately missed the sign that told us we should have turned off. We drove about 50 miles towards Big Pines until there was a full closure and we had to turn back.
In addition, the cold came, the mercury only managed 5 degrees and there was meter-deep snow on the sides. Luckily the road was relatively clear so we could drive through the curves easily with around 40 miles. At some point we arrived in Barstow late in the evening at the Quality Inn Hotel. Even that late, there was still someone at the reception, check-in went quickly and we were able to park our Harley right in front of the hotel room, which was really great.
The day was very tiring, we fell like stones into the large king-size beds that had been waiting for us for a long time. Good night!