January 27, 2006

Horse 483 - Santa Monica Boulevard

Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard

It's interesting that this song should come on right now as I'm busily looking at places, maps and other things in the US of A.

The USA had an interesting system of national highways before motorways and high speed turnpikes started to criss-cross that country. It had 101 of them which were adorned with the National Highway Crest, in fact it was so hard to win a number, that some towns actually moved just so they'd be on the road.

Santa Monica Boulevard is an interesting road because it's actually named in two songs of note. Apart from "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, the other one may surprise you. Written in 1946 by Bobby Troupe the song in question has been covered by about 200 different artists, the most notable being The Rolling Stones. Curious? I refer of course to none other then Route 66 - "The Mother Road", "The Will Rogers Highway".




Santa Monica Boulevard is the point in LA where the road finally meets its end. Since I don't intend to drive all of it on this trip, I'll be content with just a little bit of it.The other end of the road is none other than Grant Park on Adams Street in front of the Art Institute where less than 40 yards away in 1929, Al Capone gave his mates a Valentine's Day present that they'd never forget (or remember).

So why do I mention this today for? No real reason other than to re-use a picture, so HA!

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