After the big day south of the border on Wednesday, we had a day around Indio on Thursday, before checking out and heading to LA in preparation for the 14 hour flight home, leaving at 11.55pm Friday (12th).
Our day off involved visiting a couple of really big factory outlets (the Desert Hills Facory Stores at Cabazon on the freeway between Palm Springs and LA). There we bought shoes, underwear, handbags and food. The complex is over 100 shops, so you need a few hours. We were there on late night (Thursday) which helped.
Friday morning, not too early, we checked out of Indian Palms and made our way to LA. I had heard from an ex-student, Lynda Brendish, who is now working for a film studio in Santa Monica, and was hoping to catch up with her, but time constraints and her work schedule didn't allow it. Never mind - I'll have to go back again!
We made it to LA after lunch and then cruised around the Hollywood hills (saw the sign, thanks to Ms GPS), and eventually ended up at Universal Studios around 2pm. We didn't have to leave till around seven to get to the airport, so we almost got our money's worth there. Once again we got no discount to speak of for Richie, paying over $200 plus $10 parking. What the hell, it was our last day!
We did the Backlot tour on the little train thingy, which is always good, and not hard to get Richie onto. Neil and Chelsea then did the ride thing while Richie and I waited around drinking hot chocolate. The weather that day turned really cold, and it was a shock after a week of wearing T-Shirts and shorts again. Getting down to the rides from the upper level of the studios involves an elevator or two for able bodied people, and wheelchairs get taken by a little bus. Sometimes the wait can be a while for that, but you get there.
We looked at the shops and saw an animal show, then made our way out to LAX. On finding the right terminal for the Qantas flight to Brisbane (not the same terminal as other flight to Australia - why am I not surprised), we parked the car and promptly lost the parking ticket for Neil to get out and return the car to the Hertz depot! After searching high and low the kids and I went into the terminal, while Neil continued to search (eventually found it somewhere) and then returned the car with no hassles. The hassles started while checking our bags in.
LAX is the lonly airport we came across where you have your bags checked twice! After queuing up in the usual fashion, we had to take our bags down to the other end of the terminal and get them scanned again while we waited. I saw an Hispanic man take my bags away on a trolley and panicked because no-one told us the bags would be taken by a porter back to the first check-in. I chased him through the airport yelling out "he's got my bag!", while he looked at me totally oblivious to my predicament because he didn't speak English! What a circus. Neil had a few words to say to people in authority about information dissemination, but I'm sure it fell on deaf ears. In the whole trip, this was the only customs problem we had.
Once through, everything was fine - we had food and whiled away the time, which we didn't have much of because of the lost parking ticket/check-in sagas, until our flight home.
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