In the true holiday tradition I’m writing my postcards (=blogging) from the airport. As I’ve only got some “borrowed” internet, and an hour or so before the flight, I can’t do our visit to Disneyland justice. In fact, nor can the photos, but they’re all I’ve got; check them out on flickr by clicking here.
Edited: August 20th, 2010
Not much time to say a lot about Los Angeles, mostly because I haven’t seen much beyond the freeways and the hotel pool. Now that’s what I call a holiday (well apart from the freeways bit).
Scream if you want to go faster
Edited: August 17th, 2010
“It’s done; the RV has been returned safe and sound, without a scratch – well, none that they noticed at least. We set off from Malibu at 8.30am and I dropped Jen, the kids and the luggage at the hotel on the way, as it was only a few miles further into LA down the Pacific Coast Highway. Then I faced the LA freeway alone (apart from Serena the sat-nav) to get to the depot; there were a few missed turn-offs and illegal u-turns, but eventually I got there with 20 minutes to spare. We’d spent about the last 24 hours in the slow process of removing all traces of ourselves from the RV, so the return went without a hitch. Now all I’ve got to do is get across LA back to the family at the hotel…”
Oh, what fateful words I wrote while waiting for the shuttle bus. Little did I know I’d done something so stupid it would end up costing me over a hundred dollars and 4 hours of driving up and down the LA freeways.
Why? Because somehow despite all our RV packing efforts, I’d managed to forget one little thing: my £700 iPad. It wasn’t until I’d been on the bus for an hour and was about to be dropped off at LAX that I spotted an iPad billboard advert. You know how it feels when you realise you’ve done something monumentally stupid? I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach like we’d just looped-the-loop.
I got on the phone (my mobile, ouch) and after 15 minutes they confirmed they’d got it. All I had to do was get back to the depot and collect it. Problem was the shuttle bus is a one-time round-trip, so I could get back there, but would then be stranded in the outskirts of LA facing a $150 taxi ride.
Luckily(?), the shuttle bus driver offered to take me himself (he was just finishing his shift) for the bargain price of $60. No idea whether it was a bargain, but I was in no mood to haggle. So after another couple of hours on the freeway (including in the Iraqi driver’s beat up car) I finally had the iPad back in my hands and got to the hotel to meet the girls. I have a feeling it’ll take a while to live this down with Jen…
Edited: August 16th, 2010