Tourin' Over California 2017 - Day 17 Santa Monica and fly home

[Birtie]

29 July
Our last day, time to go home

We left the Safari Inn about 9am and headed for Santa Monica. It was another fine sunny day and we drove straight past Walt Disney studios on our way.

We arrived in Santa Monica and parked in a car park by the beach which cost $12. This was good until 8pm, even though we only got a couple of hours out of it. I don't know if we could have found anything cheaper but I couldn't be bothered trying.

We walked along by the beach and saw the original Muscle Beach where Megan had a go on the swing.

We then found Starbucks where Megan had her usual frapacino and a chicken chipolte sub. Tracey had an Americano and I had mocha, we both had lemon pond cake, which Tracey did her usual neat job of cutting into squares before eating.

We went back to the ocean front and walked along the pier, getting some photos including the end of Route 66.

We had been pleasantly surprised by Santa Monica and thought it would be a good place to stay if we ever come back to LA

At 11.30 we got back to the car for the short drive to LAX, stopping to fill up with petrol on the way. For the first time this holiday the pump accepted my card so I didn't have to go in to pay.

At the airport the road to car rental return was closed, so we took a couple of right turns and managed to find that it put us on the road we wanted. We dropped off the car and got the Avis bus to T6. The bus was quite full by the time we reach our terminal and Megan did a good job of getting the cases off the bus through the crowd.

We checked in, and went through security to wait in the departure lounge.

We got some food, Megan pasta alfredo, Tracey turkey sandwich, me tuna melt and charged our phones at the table while we ate.

We boarded and took off about 50 mins late, soon flying over desert with views of a single road going through it, before flying over Las Vegas. We settled down for the long flight home at the end of a memorable trip.