Day Eleven - Barstow, CA to San Bernardino, CA

California - once part of Mexico and now the 7th largest economy in the world, if it were to be counted in isolation....

The destination of the American dream, whether for gold prospecting or just the chance for a new opportunity in a place that seems to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation more than anywhere else. Inventions from California include the vacuum cleaner, personal computers, the Internet, the frisbee, fortune cookies, McDonald's and Mickey mouse to name but a few....

It is the most diverse state in the US in terms of ethinicity and immigrants and has the most people at 35 million.

In daylight the landscape marks a change from the red hues of Arizona - now it is really desert and there is beige white sand everywhere speckled with scrub.... And there is SO MUCH space.... Occasionally dissected with a road or a railway line....

Out of Barstow on Route 66 I put on "Shangri-La" by Mark Knopfler (more on this outstanding album in a separate post) and headed off towards Victorville and then towards San Bernardino. Little towns punctuate the desert road - and I mean little - Hodge for example has a population of 431 people....

I had a strange sense of expectation and excitement about reaching the last stage of Route 66 - mixed with a tinge of sadness and disappointment that the road was going to end and with it my journey across the USA.

This trip has always been about the journey and much less the destination, so as time and road run out, so does the feeling of "the traveller" and the "observer"....

And then I rolled into Victorville, a town dominated by cement factories and other industrial plants....and home to EmmaJean's Holland Burger Cafe....where a scene from "Kill Bill" was shot.

An original Route 66 cafeteria / diner in original condition - right down to the faded leatherette stools around the counter area where you sit and watch the short order cook slave away at the griddle, while the waitress runs around making jokes and having fun with the customers.... You have the feeling it's always been this way here - right from when it was first opened in 1947.

An amazing place and a MUST STOP.

Mine was a cup of coffee and an All American Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich on white toast...quite the best I have ever seen or tasted. Awesome.

Through Victorville and into the valley descending to San Bernardino. Time for a truly authentic California sound - Surf Rock. There are two kinds of Surf Music - The Beach Boys style which is all about the California of fun and sun and then there were the musicians like Dick Dale who tried to capture the feelings of the surfer hitting the big wave on their guitars. Dick Dale was of Lebanese parentage (his father) and was known for his famous son "Miserlou" which was actually an old Greek rebetika song which he took and added his low tuned, thick stringed gold Fender Stratocaster to. The song was revived in the Tarantino move Pulp Fiction. Dale also plays the trumpet part on the track.

Surf Rock didn't really survive the 60s but it has a unique sound and is an interesting sub genre of modern music unique to California. The genre was revived in the 1990s following the release of Pulp Fiction, with bands from further afield - including Finland! - getting in on the act. The band names were great too - here are some of the bands and tracks::

Dick Dale and his Del Tones - Miserlou
The Ventures - Walk Don't Run
The Chantays - Pipeline
The Bel-Airs - Mr. Moto
The Lively Ones - Surf Rider (also in Pulp Fiction)
The Astronauts - Baja
The Aqua Velvets (formed in the 90s and followers of the Dick Dale sound - named after an aftershave) - Guitar Noir
Pollo Del Mar (formed in 1994 and named after a brand of canned tuna) - A Flash of Green
The Vanduras - La Planche
Laika & The Cosmonauts (A Finnish surf band formed in the 1980s) - N.Y. '79
The Blue Hawaiians (another 90s band) - Martini Five-O

Great stuff to accompany me into San Bernardino proper and a ride down the legendary Mt Vernon Avenue past fading motels and garages. Then a left turn and off to the North end of town to see the original McDonald's on E st and 14 st. No longer serving burgers it is now a museum to McDonald's and Route 66 - owned by Mexican businessman who has a chain of chicken restaurants.

The hamburger was invented in 1891 by Otto Kusaw in Hamburg, Germany. The cook sold two thin beef patties topped with a fried egg and served between two slices of bread.

In 1895, fifteen year old Charles Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin sells meatballs at the country fair. To make them easier to eat while walking, Nagreen flattens the meatballs and puts them between slices of bread....

In 1900, Louis Lassen, original owner of Louis Lunch in Newhaven, Connecticutt puts a beef patty on two slices of white bread and serves in his restaurant.

In 1904, at the St Louis World's Fair, Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas, sets up a hamburger stand. The hamburger in America is born.

In 1921, the first hamburger chain, White Castle, begins in Wichita, Kansas. The company now has 380 locations.

In 1948 the first McDonald's drive-in is opened in San Bernardino, California by brothers Richard & Maurice McDonald. Ray Kroc bought the company - but not the original restaurant - in 1955. It now has more than 30,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries.

Ray Kroc was a milk shake mixer salesman from Illinois. One of his customers for the Multi Mixer was the McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino.

As Knopfler puts in his excellent lyrics in the song "Boom Like That", that's "Kroc with a K, like crocodile but not spelled that way...."

Kroc could see from his own sales that McDonald's family business in California was doing well so he decided to cross America along the same route as Route 66 - but Kroc probably flew - to meet the McDonald's brothers, Maurice and Richard (Dick).

Their clean restaurant, cheap prices, simple menu and friendly service impressed Kroc and he could see the recipe for success. He even liked the name "McDonald's" which had a family friendly / homely quality. An aggressive salesman, Kroc pitched the idea of franchising the brand and going into partnership with the brothers to spread McDonald's across America. The brothers reluctantly agreed to the hard talking Kroc's proposition. They kept their existing nine restaurants - which had already brought them prosperity - and allowed Kroc to open the franchise in the East. Kroc's first restaurant was in Des Plaines, Illinois and featured the now legendary golden arches.

As he expanded quickly, Kroc realised that the brand was very powerful - but it was the real estate that would be the winner for him. He bought up land which he would then lease back to franchisees and make a fortune from both the franchise and the real estate.

His views on the business and those of the McDonald brothers were very different. He set up his new McDonald's in direct competition with the existing restaurants owned by the brothers and started to squeeze them. In 1955 Kroc bought them out for $1 million US apiece and then declared the Des Plaines, Illinois McDonald's the first ever and denied the existence of the brothers. Kroc died in 1984 a multi-billionaire - but his manner, motives and morals were certainly not to be admired.

The fate of McDonald's original restaurant and Route 66 are somehow similarly linked and symbolise the mass commoditisation of America and American values.

Both McDonald's and Route 66 started out as "local" and post war were symbols of the kind of honest prosperity and hope that made America so great. Both were born of need - Route 66 to allow the people from the East and the Mid West cross the country to find opportunity and a chance to flee the depression and the Dust Bowl, McDonald's simple restaurant was born to provide simple honest food to families at affordable prices and with a friendly atmosphere.

Eisenhower's interstate highway system "nationalised" America and reduced the "locallness" of small town USA. The system connected the dots and made it much easier to centre the economy and the people on the big cities as they were now connected more effectively. Trans American migration became a far more easy reality - and coupled with the post war boom in the automotive industry - this is exactly what happened. America became less local and more national, but with small town USA losing its identity, economy and home spun values in short order.

McDonald's under Kroc did the same thing. It took a local, family business and in the relentless pursuit of money - it homegenised the brand and the concept so that the experience was the same across the USA and now the world. Character, values and identity became franchised. Just as other chains have done since - such as Starbucks and KFC.

But this franchising of the American soul has a cost to balance against the dollars. That cost is an identity which people today struggle to define. A value system built around freedoms and rights but few responsibilities and an America which is all but morally bankrupt on anything other than a superficial level.

The big question is what next? Will America choke on its own greed? Will people be forced or choose to return to some older values?

With a multi trillion dollar debt which is paying for tax cuts and the wars, a weak dollar and some of America's biggest companies in trouble (General Motors, Ford, Daimler Chrysler) the economy is shaky.

Obesity is killing more people than the almost outlawed smoking and healthcare expenses and insurance are one of the key themes of the forthcoming Presidential elections as people are now terrified of going bankrupt should they suffer a serious illness and the State cannot and will not provide. Ironically it is some of the other "great" US companies which are causing this - such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's, KFC etc. And these healthcare and obesity issues are MAJOR threats to these global brands....

Finally the morality of America is at an all time low - with the Christian hard right which can now be summed up with the line: "Eats, shoots and believes" (with apologies to Lynn Truss...). Muslims make up a larger and larger proportion of the population and continue to grow but are marginalised in politics and discriminated against by almost everyone. And the largest growing group are the non-believers. Perhaps because there is so little left to believe in America.

Route 66 and the original McDonald's show you how it once was - when America was really great and when it had every hope and opportunity for the future.

In the end, what spoiled it for the US, are the two must fundamental human drivers. Greed and fear. America is a nation of greedy and frightened people.

It's a shame - they have nothing to fear and no-one is going to steal America's lunch - either literally or figuratively...

If America can regulate its greed at a national, corporate and individual level and learn to embrace the things and people it knows nothing about instead of rejecting them wholesale as "bad, scary, worse than us" then there is hope that this once great nation can once again be great.

Will the next President do that? Probably not. It'll take mass disaster and wholesale disenfranchisement from the populace - which will probably be as painful as the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl days in the 20s and 30s.

To be a proud American it is enough to be able to identify what it means to be American. If I were running for President, that is what my manifesto would focus on - redefining what it means to be American and not glossing over the reality of what America and Americans have become.

And with that, I will finish my Big Mac and head back to Route 66 for the last 50 miles or so.