Thursday, 8 May
Well, it is our last day in the USA – we fly out tonight. Tom and Pat are also flying out to Portland to meet their Son, my Nephew Jeff, for a couple of days. Any way, we have a leisurely morning because our flights are later in the day e.g. 11:45 PM for Julie and I. Of course, Julie goes out for a walk for a while. In the mean time I have my Cheerios and then to the horrible job of packing the suitcase for the last time. Pat wants to go out to check the house of her former Aunt – Pat grew up in Santa Barbara. She comes back in great excitement as the Aunt is apparently still alive and is in a nearby nursing home. So she heads there for a visit.
Julie returns and the three of us load up the car. We decide we will have a look at the Old Santa Barbara Mission, one of many built by the Franciscan Friars along the Pacific Coast of California. This one is called the Queen of the Missions. When we get there we cannot go into the Chapel as there is a funeral service going on. There is a tour scheduled but it is still 75 minutes away. We have a bit of a look around but then get in the car.
http://www.santabarbaramission.org/
We pick up Pat who is very excited about meeting with her Aunt, who is 94 years old and still quite lucid. There is little left to do in Santa Barbara so we being our trek down the Coast with the destination Los Angeles Airport. We try to stick with Highway 1, instead of US101, as much as possible. The following website gives some interesting information about Highway 1 and its construction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_1
You know when you are getting near Los Angeles, the freeway traffic starts banking up. Especially at the Junction of the San Diego Freeway and then going down it. We have lots of time, a good thing. We decide we will go to Venice Beach area, I used to play Volley Ball there on the beach. Pat selects a restaurant in West LA called Gjelina which Tripadvisor has it Ranked #32 of 8,523 restaurants in Los Angeles – not bad. We get a table in the Courtyard, we continued to experience delightful weather. So we have our last meal in the USA.
Tom had Mussels. Julie scored my greens while Pat distributed her fries to Tom and I. This place was pleasant enough, not bad for a “Last Supper”. The Girls decide to walk down to the Beach but it turns out to be further away than we thought so Tom picks them up and we drive to the beach area. The beach itself is beautiful, the ocean looks great, the weather is good, the park well set-out with skateboarding facilities. However, the “town” of Venice Beach itself is horrible. It has always been eclectic, probably last time I was there was 45 years ago, but now it is disgustingly garish eclectic One of the worst beach towns I have seen. Seaside, Oregon 18 months ago was an absolute paradise compared.
So we decide to drive up to Santa Monica. I used to spend a lot of time there before moving to Australia, playing on the Volley Ball courts many weekends. The Black Forest was a great little German Restaurant. When we get there, virtually everything had been changed. The only places still the same were the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where I saw lots of musis concerts e.g. Grateful Dead, and it looked like the Volley Ball courts were the same although I did not get that close. We get a parking place in a parking station, thank you again sticker, and Pat decides to stay in the Car. The three of us walk through one of the most boring food courts that I have ever seen. We go our separate ways – Julie to walk around town, Tom back to the car and me to a bar with a view, to have a wine and some olives.
Eventually I go back to the car where Tom and Pat are sound asleep, trying to get in I wake them up, sorry. Eventually, Julie comes back and we decide what to do next. As is typically the case at near the end of a long trip, we had no enthusiasm for anything so decide to drive to LAX, drop of the car and wait there even though in our case it will likely mean a wait of 6 hours and more. We had been using Pat’s iPhone’s Siri for navigation directions. Siri guided us down Lincoln Blvd, Highway 1, which seemed to be a bad choice as the traffic was horrendous and hardly moving. Some pedestrians on the sidewalk made better progress than us for quite a while. Eventually we break free a bit and get to the Car Rental place, it is absolutely massive and just one of many car rental companies at LAX. We get on the Bus to go to the Terminals. We are off first at Terminal 3 so say last goodbyes to Tom and Pat, it was a good time with the family – especially the Taco Truck moments.
We check-in smoothly at Virgin Australia in Terminal 3, I was worried we might be too early but no problems. The girl sends us over to Tom Bradley Terminal from where our plane will depart. We go through the lines and hassles of the outgoing security. Julie leaves her passport behind but fortunately I find it and pick it up. There were no instructions but when we get to the exit point, all the pockets need to be emptied so I put my wallet and stuff in a separate bin for the conveyor belt. Of course, I forgot all about that and am fortunate enough to be able to go back and find that stuff. Whew, we are through.
There are lots of expensive looking shops but we take the elevator up to the Lounge. We are in the Star Alliance lounge and it is substantially empty because there are hardly any flights scheduled (it starts getting crowded much later on as the passengers for the Asian flights departing after midnight arrive). Any way, it is a nice spacious lounge that has some interesting food and drink. There is a food bar where you can make your own Vietnamese soup, which was good. Julie investigates the shops for a while. I work on this Blog and Skype with Gary for a while. Eventually, the time passes and we are called to Board. This involves taking a Bus into the innards of the airport. The Bus is very crowded and there is some excitement as we take off some of the passengers yell out to turn the bus around as one of the other passengers had passed out. So we go back to the gate and staff assist the passenger and eventually take him off.
We go out and Board the plane, we are in Row 1 this time. We wait an eternity, well over an hour, before finally pushing back. I suspect that this might have had something to do with the sick passenger but don’t know. The good thing is that the flight is to take an hour less time that had been anticipated so it looks like we will arrive on time. It is a long, long flight on which I do very little other than eat and drink. I fall asleep in the chair before the bed is rolled out. Eventually the flight is ending.
I must say that Virgin Australia and this airplane, B777, was very good all the way through. Cheers, Virgin!