We walked around San Luis Obispo and found the downtown area really charming. We found an amazing candy store which had a corner with seats where you could watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Andrew then suggested I drive the Dodge! I went from our motel down one road before I found myself on the 101(California here we come) first time driving a huge automatic sat on the other side of the car on the other side of the road scary! As I came to do a u-turn a cop car was sat in the lay-by opposite which made me hesitate before turning. Luckily I did as seconds later a huge truck came along with a cop car in pursuit asking the driver to pull over. The car opposite me joined the pursuit. So I let Andrew continue the drive to Santa Monica! We stopped for lunch at a beautiful spot off the 154 between the mountains. We had the spot to ourselves and the Californian sun was shining. Soon some lovely birds the size of blackbirds but with blue wings came and shared our picnic. We then drove on to Santa Monica where we found our motel and walked down to the pier. The beaches are amazing and all you can see for miles. Santa Monica is the end of route 66 although it will be the start for us. We found a stand on the pier and met someone who had driven the whole route and was full of passion for it, giving us some good tips and making us excited.