Mountain Lifestyle: The Luckiest

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

The Luckiest

One hundred and six days since leaving the UK, a trio of Pelicans waved us off the Californian beach and back onto a London bound flight. How did we dream all this up - and then make it happen? And how did it go by so quickly? I really have no idea...

We wanted to spend our last morning of the trip on the beach. Initially we planned to visit Manhattan Beach, but a last minute hook up with my cousin's friend, saw us strolling into the 'walk only' streets of residential Venice for a lovely cup of tea and natter with the infamous film director, Freddy in his beautiful garden.

Then it was down to the beach to dip our toes in one last time.

Out on the pier, we soaked up the views of the whole coastline, with the Hollywood hills in the background.

And watched a few surfers...

Then took a final look-in at the beach skatepark where the most unassuming guy there was pulling off the most amazing tricks, with grace and ease. Effortless.

Sadly weight allowance restrictions forbade any last minute shopping.

Instead we got some fresh food from a cool local deli, and ate lunch on the beach, as a few clouds started to build inland. We stayed as late as we dared, savouring every last moment until the Pelican flyby signalled time to get moving.

We had a pretty smooth van drop off and taxi ride to the airport. We seemed to have accumulated a decent bug collection on the front bumper over the weeks!

Check in (only 40grams over weight!) was smooth and fast enough for us to relax with a drink near the gate (Hand luggage remained an excessively heavy 12kg though!). I pooled all our remaining cash and was 12 cents short of the drinks bill, so had to pay the 12 cents on our Visa card! As we sat drinking our final cuppa, would you believe it, the Californian blue skies faded to grey and by the time we boarded the plane, the drought had broken! Unbelieveable timing; time to move on!