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Published: October 26th 2008
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Our last day - boo hoo! The kids are ready for home and seeing their friends, but Steve and I would like another couple of years before we have to go back to the drudgery of work. Even a few more days to wind down would be nice - I should have booked a couple of days at the beach on the way home!!! Next time...
So we pack up the suitcases, squeezing everything we could in every little space, but darn it we still have a plastic bag full of shoes and stuff to put somewhere. Too bad that we've got time to do some last minute shopping before heading up to LAX.
Checked the Qantas schedule online to find that the inbound flight which will turn around and take us home to Auckland is horrendously late (surprise, surprise) getting in to LAX - 9 hrs late to be exact. Phoned Qantas who advised that our flight should still depart on time and checkin is still 6pm. Excellent!~
Drove back up the I8 highway and found the shopping centre we had passed on the way in from Sedona. Now this Target was way way better than the
Anaheim one. It was two stories and had a great selection of sports clothes, linen and luggage. Managed to blow a few more $$$ and fill the new bag we purchased. Best buy in my opinion was the bag full of 100 miniature chocolates for $9 - I think I love Halloween!!! And the big fluffy towels for $5 each - why are they so expensive at home???
We finally left San Diego at around 2pm. The traffic was really heavy all the way, but never at a standstill thank goodness as I had read on the net that if there's an accident the drive up to LAX can take all day. We used the carpool lanes when we could which was fabulous as we zoomed past the thousands and thousands of cars with only one person in them - where are they all going??? We were completely blown away by one section of the highway just north of San Diego which was 27 lanes wide (14 Southbound lanes and 13 Northbound lanes) - no joke, I looked it up on the net!!!!
We arrived in the airport area, filled up gas easily and quickly at the dodgiest
Gas station ever (Steve reckons the security was phenomenal) and returned the car to Dollar. I nearly died when I saw about 50 cars ahead of us in the dropoff area and thought that we would be there for hours. Not so. It took longer for us to unload the cases and kids than it did for the guy to check us in and issue a receipt. Great! Jumped on the transfer bus and checked in at the Qantas counter with a little under an hour to spare thank goodness.
The poor Qantas QF25 finally limped into the gate at 7.30pm (should have been 10.45am) and we very, very lucky to leave only an hour late. The flight itself was actually really good and the staff were outstanding. We ended up having two rows of three seats to ourselves and we all managed to get a few hours sleep before landing in Auckland at 6.30am on the 12th.
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