ROUTE 66 CALIFORNIA | Best Roadside Attractions 🇺🇲

So we're on Santa Monica Pier, now normally that would be the end of Route 66 but it's going to be our first isn't it Gary? Yes, we're starting it here. I want a mare to park though, so if you've got an RV be warned the car parks are trying to charge you $48 to park daylight robbery, so we gave that a miss didn't we? Tucked up the back streets, used the parking sort of metres and it's $2.50 for an hour parked outside the police station show. Fingers crossed. We've come somewhere this morning, it's about 8.30 in LA and we've come to Marilyn Monroe's crypt. I love Marilyn Monroe and I know a lot of women my age and older just absolutely adore her. I feel quite emotional just looking at her crypt now and there's lots of kisses on the crypt. You'll see, lots of people kiss on it. Now I've got my red lipstick on, I love my red lipstick and I'm not sure I want to kiss a grave but I feel like maybe I should. Gary's laughing. Gary! Why are you laughing? I'm just spoiling a really sad moment. I'm not sure if I want to kiss a grave. I don't know if I want to kiss a grave but it's Marilyn Monroe's grave so maybe I should kiss it. I'm just trying to find a spot no one else has kissed because I don't want to put my mouth on it. But Marilyn, what would you do? I'm just waiting for the vibe phone to tell me what to do. Oh dear, I'm going to do a little kiss. There's my lipstick now. You can see it's not full because it looks like I've done half a kiss. I've got graveyard stuff on me now. Oh, it looks terrible. It looks worse than if I'd done nothing. Sorry Marilyn, that's a really bad one but that's all I can muster. I need to wash my mouth in a minute, Gary. So here it is, this is Marilyn's crypt. She was born in 1926 and died in 1962. She was only 36 but my goodness, what a legacy that beautiful woman left. Now, if you look at the crypts around her, I'm just going to scan around. This is what it looks like. It's a pretty little graveyard. It's quite quiet. There's a group of tourists over there that are wandering around. It's very early on a Sunday. But above her is a guy called Richard F. Poncher. Now he bought his crypt. He wanted to be on top of Marilyn. Such a big fan he was. And his biggest request was to be face down on her crypt. I mean, honestly, that's a bit strange. Especially as his wife Elizabeth is the next crypt. Hmm, that's very weird. Anyway, another weird but well-known story is Hugh Hefner's. He paid $75,000 to be next to Marilyn. Can you imagine that? $75,000, there's some kisses on his. Hmm, no. There's loads of people that are famous that have been buried here. I've just seen Jackie Collins' crypt as well. But there's also Kirk Douglas as well, isn't there, hun? Yeah. I've just realised that Marilyn and Hugh's stones are a really different colour to everyone else's. It's more pinky now. Whether that's all the years of lipstick kisses, which I expect it might be. But they're all much more grey. But wasn't she a colourful character? I feel so emotional. I love Marilyn Monroe. Like I don't want to leave. I've just loved seeing this. She still stands out now. Bye, Marilyn. RIP, darling. God, I absolutely loved seeing Marilyn's crypt today. But I really wonder what she makes of Hugh Hefner buying the crypt next to her, given that she didn't actually agree to pose for Playboy. He bought the rights to her photographs that she'd made four years previously. And she'd earned about $50 for those photographs. She was desperate. Obviously needed to make a little bit of money. And he bought the rights for about $500. And then four years later, he launched Playboy with her on the cover. She didn't see a dime of it. And by all accounts, she had to buy her own copy of Playboy. Can you believe it? So I expect she didn't really like the bloke. I didn't really like him. I mean, this is a grown-arse man who's swanned around in a dressing gown 24 hours a bloody day. What do you think of that, Gary? It's quite a good look, personally. Hugh Hefner, eat your heart out. This is play men. You are my own personal Marilyn Monroe. Guess where we are? So we've come to the Getty Villa, haven't we, Gary? Now, this is the thing. It's absolutely free. But you've got to book it online first and get your tickets. Dead easy. They send you an email. So we made it into Getty Villa. God, what a ball egg that was. So he gets to the kiosk and she says, have you paid for parking? Which, of course, I hadn't done. So highly recommend you do that, especially if you're coming in with an RV. And then I've had to ask a few people to move back because they were right up our arse on a hill, weren't they? We finally got collected onto some Wi-Fi. And it's sort of got loads of warning signals as you're going through. Danger, everyone could see what you're looking at kind of thing. So, Gary, you can't be looking at anything weird anymore. You know? Quite like off-road dirt biking. The villa was open to the public in 1974, you're saying, isn't it? Yeah, well, it was open in 1974. Whether that means open to the public or when it was built, I can't tell from what I'm reading. So we've just picked up some pamphlets. Now, it's built like a Roman palace, really, isn't it? So let's go and have a look around. Well, they always have these really weird little statues with tiny dinkles everywhere. It's all over the place, isn't it? This is very much... It reminds me of Rome, doesn't it, you, Gary? With, like... Look how gorgeous this is. Now, it's a bit of a grey day in LA today. I like the colours. It's sort of creams and burgundy and the pillars. Oh, it's gorgeous. I'm really surprised that the eyes on these statues, it just looks... They don't... It looks a bit weird, doesn't it? A bit creepy. A little bit creepy, yeah. So this fountain is called Eight Feline Heads. You'll see the lily pads all around it. It's absolutely beautiful. That's magnificent. There's only a little trickle of water coming down there, so it's really peaceful. Oh, people have put coins in it. We're going up the marble staircase. It's just enormous. It doesn't feel like a house, though, does it, Gary? No. I mean, if you were living in here, you'd soon get lost. Get upstairs. There's two different sections, and I think they have different exhibits on. Going to the Gold Emperor exhibition. There's literally so much to see. There's exhibition room after exhibition room. It's incredible. Oh, wow, look at this. Oh, that's magnificent. Statue of a horse and rider. Wow. So the little bit right up here says, unlike the horseman who competed naked in Greek athletic games, this rider wears a short fringe tunic. Imagine competing naked. All of that stuff dangling around on a horse. I'd hate that. Wow, it's simply stunning. Here's the room full of busts and the major sculpture in the centre. It's lovely. I've just been speaking to one of the staff members here. Absolutely loves working here because the whole point of this is anyone can come and see it. Oh, gosh, here we go. More tinkle. Sorry about this, but it's Roman art. Everywhere you look, it's incredible artwork. And the detail on some of the gladiator sort of outfits is breathtaking. I can't recommend this highly enough. As you'll see, there's sort of an atrium that goes all the way round, but each room that you go into leads on to another exhibit room. There's so much to see. It's a very sombre room, and here's the mummy of Colitis. It still is incredible. Actually, this is a belt here. It looks like a tiny waist and really goes to show how we've all plumped out over the centuries, to be quite honest. Marius just used the word exquisite for this place, and he's right. That's exactly what it is, isn't it, Beth? It's utterly exquisite. And we're going to go out to the swimming pool area. Everywhere you look, it's utter beauty. There's just such a gorgeous design. Look at that swimming pool. It's a really peaceful place, isn't it, babe? It is, despite the fact that there's people everywhere. You can find your own bit of solitude. So we decided to have our lunch at the Getty Cafe. And talk about a bit of a bargain, actually. Well, it's not super-duper, but it's like $40, wasn't it, for us two? Yeah, for two. I've got a lovely salad, and Gary's got burger and chips, of course. But anyway, I'll probably have some of them chips. So he won't be on his own, but I'm trying to eat a bit healthier. But yeah, we're happy with this, aren't we? It's great. There's even koi carp in here as well. This is unbelievable. I'm 100% sure this isn't allowed, but Gary's trying to stroke a fish. But again, the amount of naked men we've seen today is incredible. They're everywhere. Gary's made a fish friend. The fish actually came back to be stroked. We're next to another naked man. So we're at our first crazy location, aren't we, Gary? We are. So this is Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch, and we're just outside of... Where are we? Victorville. Just outside of Victorville. Just outside of Victorville, and we've come across... We've been driving down. Now, it's really surprising how much of the Route 66 is desolate now. But it's so great to see this place here. Look at all this crazy stuff. So everything is a little bottle tree, and they've all got loads of bottles. And then at the top, it's got various different pieces at the top. I mean, there was even a bike we saw. I mean, that's massive. There is literally hundreds of these bottles everywhere. There's an old Coca-Cola sign. What's going on? What is it? It looks like the stuffing's come out. The stuffing has come out, but it's supposed to depict some bloke who's got his watsit caught in a mangle. What? Really? Let me have a look. Let me have a look. Oh, gosh, it is as well. Yeah, my stuffing had come out as well. There's a little table and chairs here to sit at. And you can hear loads of wind chimes, can't you? It's lovely, isn't it? It's just really strange, but kind of peaceful. Yeah, but there's so much to see. There's so many fascinating artifacts and objects out here. Gosh, you just can't get over it all. It's an old pump and an old bike. Oh, an old handbag. It's like literally any old object has been used to make some artwork. It's brilliant. I really like it. There's loads of these old typewriters. And I tell you what, I learned to type on one of them. It's really horrible on your little finger in particular. You really press it down. I don't want to touch anything in case I break it. Oh, look, a car. A labour of love in somewhere like this. It's really artistic. It's creative. It's quirky. It's actually really Route 66-ish. Well worth a stop. And if you can afford it, leave a nice little donation. Oh, my gosh, there's even a bomb here. I take it that's safe, Gary. I'm going to ask my military expert. Is it safe? That's safe. How can you tell? Because it's not gone off. Crikey, there's another one. Where are they getting them all from, I wonder? It's a bit strange, isn't it? More typewriters. There's loads of typewriters around here. It's like a typing pool. Here's the little wishing well where you can pop a little donation in. I'm going to pop a couple of dollars in there in a second. Gary's found a missile. Is it a real one, do you think? It's a real casing. It's clearly not dangerous anymore. I wonder where he got it from. There's a bird made its nest in there. I don't know whether you can see it. Oh, has it really? How fascinating. OK, I don't think I can see in that, darling. But wouldn't it be good if I could show it? It says, make a wish, Highway 66. So I think you're supposed to sit on the chair and make a wish. I'm going to do it, Gary. Well, I'm not going to tell you my wish, but one wish is that my bum doesn't get so burnt on this because it's really hot and I'm sitting on thin leggings. My wish is that it doesn't collapse. It doesn't seem very safe. All right. My second wish was going to be I would lose some weight. Actually, they're not my wishes at all. But if those things happen, that's great. You don't need to lose weight. Well, we've had a really exciting change of plans. So we were going to eye over land and near Elmer's place, weren't we? We'd found a place just outside of Hellenstown, is it, Gary? Hellensdale. Anyway, the place had more glass in it than flipping Elmer's. So we decided we didn't really want to stay there. But Gary was checking out the movie theatre because it's a drive-in movie theatre where we were going to stay tomorrow. And it turns out, what did you find out, babe? It's closed tomorrow and Tuesday. So we were like, oh, my gosh, it's Sunday today. So if we don't go tonight, we're going to be hanging around until Wednesday. And that's going to scupper our plans somewhat. So Gary said, do you want to go to the pictures? I was like, yes. So we're going to movie night tonight. We're having a date tonight, aren't we? We are. He didn't know until now that he's on a date. We've just turned up at the drive-in theatre. And we've met the owner. So he's come along, and they've collected little bottles of stuff that's been lying around. They're lying. They're a burning man. They're on the pyre. Where's the dust, storm, and mud? You know, the caravan sinking into the mud on the way to the house. We can't wait for the temple burn. So they've said that we can stay overnight in there. So it's even better. We're going to go and watch the films and stay overnight. And we've met the best, funniest people. So it's been brilliant, guys. We're about to go into the drive-in theatre. And this is what it looks like. The box office. And how much is it, Gary? It's $12 each. $12 for adults. Really good value. The first in tonight. And look at the sunset. It's gorgeous. And here we go. We're going to the drive-in theatre. They've got two screens on. And whenever you come in, you get to watch two films. So we're seeing... What are we seeing? Equalizer 3 and Gran Turismo. Gran Turismo. Like the latest movies that you're going to get. It's unbelievable. And they've got a snack bar and everything here. So we'll get some stuff from the concession. And the guy has been so nice. He's just said to us, if we need anything, just to give him a shout. If we want ice for the van or whatever. Honestly, Gary, we're over the moon, aren't we? We really are. What a lovely guy. Look at this. This is really retro. And it smells gorgeous in here. As you might expect, there'd be a bit of popcorn. And look at this. It's fantastic. What you do is you tune it into your radio. And then you can have the sound. They're playing the trailers at the moment. And Gary's cleaning the windscreen. But isn't it amazing? Just have a few cars next to you. Beautiful sunset. This is incredible. Join us next time for part two of our Route 66. We'll be hitting an abandoned water park. We're also going to be dining in Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, amongst other things. So please hit that subscribe and ding-a-ling that bell if you don't want to miss it. Thanks for watching, guys. Love you loads. See you soon.