Anyway, our last day dawned bright and blue and we headed off in the trusty George to Huntington Beach. We found a car park OK but found it very difficult to pay! The place was heaving with surfer dudes who had other concerns - such as a very tiring tag surf race...The machine when finally found had run out of paper so we had to note a number and leave a handwritten note on the dashboard. A walk along the pier took us to Ruby's and views of pelicans for breakfast.
Karen is very grateful to Meg for the tip of the day - Club Soda removes ketchup from blue blouses - really it does!
We wandered back along the pier to watch the surfers and then into town to a post office for Karen to buy a money order and send a letter (more of this later...). Then with a sigh and armed with leaflets about what to do in an earthquake thrust upon us by an insistent Fire Chief (sorry Lorraine), we pointed George in the direction of LAX.
As we started George reported that he needed an oil change but with only about 15 miles to go we decided to ignore it until we gave him back. A rather dull and uneventful journey led us to the outskirts of the airport. Fiona was reading the map when a coach driver shouted where do you wanna go? amazingly he told us how to get to the rental return car park - just can't imagine anyone doing that at Heathrow.
Handing the car over was easy but they charged us for fuel we had already paid for - we are getting it back now but that just adds to our determination not to use that particular company again.
We checked in and went through security at which point Fiona remembered that there's very little to do at LAX and very limited duty free. We also discovered that Karen had left her glasses at the counter in the post office. A call to the office found them and a very helpful guy has promised to send them to us. It's typical of our trip that people were unfailingly kind - the woman at Route 66 (cafe in LAX) brought a sharing plate of food when she saw how upset Karen was about her glasses.
Karen trying to look happy at the end of our trip...
And so to Heathrow - we spent about 45 mins circling and swooping above the runway as the gales and rain caused flight delays and prevented us from landing. A really peaceful pleasant flight ruined by those last minutes - God knows what will happen if they do get another runway. We made a note to fly from somewhere else if at all possible.
So, it's goodbye from us - we can show you all the other photos if you like!
Thank you to everyone who gave us such generous gifts and made this truly a trip to remember
Love
F and K xx
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