Day 23 - Los Angeles - Last day, pool time, flight to Melbourne

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We woke up a decent few hours before check-out. Marnee and I hit the pool for a few hours and Nick had bolted back to the hotel from wherever he had crashed for the night and joined us there. It was a stunning pool area, very LA, surrounded by palm trees and the sun was shining. Eventually and sadly we had to head back to our room, shower and pack our things to check-out.
We decided we’d go and get some lunch at the reliable California Pizza Kitchen then hit up the shops for our last chance of USA prices. After a bit more of a walk around, we walked back to the hotel, got our bags, rearranged some things then walked to the station to catch the train to Union Station then then bus to LAX. We were very careful this time to leave heaps of spare time for the trip. We didn’t want a repeat of the last time we flew out of LA.
Again, Nick was on a different flight home, so we said our goodbyes to him on the bus as he was at a different terminal. I handed him my car keys as he was getting into Melbourne before us and could collect my car from the long term car park and meet us at McDonalds. It was more convenient for us and filled in some time for him until we got back.
We got dropped at our terminal, checked in and went through security. We had plenty of time to fill as it was a 10:35pm flight we decided to get some dinner. We had no American dollars left though so Marnee and I shared a Caesar salad at a pub just near our gate and Marnee put it on her AMEX card. Finally, it was time to board and we took out seats ready for our thirteen hour flight to Auckland. Again in Auckland we had a couple of hours to fill so got something small at Burger King then did the 3-4 hours flight back to Melbourne.
We went through border control quickly then collected a few things in the duty free store before collecting our bags and going through customs. We walked from there to McDonalds where Nick was waiting as planned with my car. While he’d been waiting, he’d spoken to Alan and Marie and they were coming to meet him for some lunch before he then boarded his flight later in the day back to Perth. Marnee and I jumped in my car, which was weird after over three weeks of not driving, and jumped on the freeway home.

What a fantastic 23 days we had.

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