Lost in El Segundo


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Published: June 3rd 2017
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Early starts all round for a 7am rondevou at the airport. Checked the bikes in and started boarding, at which point I realised I hadn't deflated my tyres. Oh dear, too late now.

The "Spirit of Australia" kept us well fed and watered throughout, but 14 hours is a long flight any way you look at it.

When we landed, US Customs was . . . . an exercise in patience, which means I failed badly. There were about 1000 people trying to get through when we were there. It took an over hour. From there we needed to get a hire car, which is when the fun started because as we discovered, there are no rental car agencies at the airport. Instead you have to have to catch one of the many shuttle's that zoom past that are specific to each rental car company. We ended up on a Hertz shuttle and decided on renting renting a pathfinder. No hiring a GPS for us as Dave had downloaded a complete set of US maps onto his phone. While we planned on being able to get our accommodation in one trip, the Pathfinder was quite big enough to fit everything in - so two trips it is. I drove on the first trip and Jeff played navigator leaving Dave and Tom with the rest of our gear at Hertz.

Getting to the place wasn't too bad but the return trip to Hertz was something else. We started back tracking but at a crucial fork in the road, Jeff called left - it was right. The next exit off the freeway was about 10km away And the phone battery (which powered our GPS) was down to 10%. We got off the freeway and realised we didn't know the address of Hertz, so I spent the next 15 minutes cruising around with "Ray Charles" as my navigator until we spotted it. Another much quicker trip back to that he accommodation and we started to unpack. Jeff, Tom and I put our bikes together while Goldilocks found a bed that was "juuuuust right" and fell asleep. Good news was my tubes didn't burst in-flight!

The three of us then went and cruised around a bit. Tiredness started to get the best of us so we grabbed some lunch and headed back. Goldilocks was still asleep. After an afternoon power nap
Out ShoppingOut ShoppingOut Shopping

Arbour creeper at the local shopping centre
Jeff and I went out and did some shopping and stopped at a local sporting field all lit up. Looked a treat. Got back and Goldilocks was STILL asleep and so was the BFG (Big Friendly Giant)

It's dawned on us that it's still Friday (the same day we left Melbourne) and only 4pm in the afternoon . It's going to be a long 6 weeks at this rate.


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6th June 2017

Stevie Wonder
I guess having Ray Charles as the navigator, is better than Stevie Wonder as the pilot.

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