SATURDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2024

(Manhattan Beach, CA)

A slightly unsettled night, as I was a bit cold (yes, despite being in California) and the pillow was a bit bouncy for my liking, but I still got a reasonable number of hours in. I read the news for a bit before going and making coffee, which I drank outside on our private deck. After that, we went out for food. I was really hungry probably because, apart from some cookies, we hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. Our chosen venue was The Local Yolk, a busy cafe just around the corner from our bungalow. The breakfast was excellent, and mine came with two – yep, two – banana muffins, and I ate everything. I did say I was hungry. The area is very cute, with a lovely feel. Last night we both said we were never coming through LAX again, due to the traffic, but today we thought this area was lovely and almost worth a repeat visit. It is a bit of a Key West or St Augustine vibe, albeit not as old as the latter. 

We did a little bit of repacking, so that most of it was done, before heading down to the beach. The reception provided us with beach chairs, towels, and an umbrella, and we walked the five small blocks to the sea. What I hadn’t appreciated from a map was just how steep the area is leading down to the beach. This was ok on the way out, but I felt like we would definitely be hiking slowly on the way back.  We chose a spot on the beach, planted the umbrella, and positioned our chairs in the shade.

The next few hours were spent people watching, bird watching, boat watching, surfer spotting and occasionally strolling along the beach, or having a paddle. In my case, this was supplemented with a short dip in the surf. Generally all very nice and fun. The houses fronting the beach were interesting as every single one is designed differently. 

We climbed our way back to the bungalow, and showered and changed before going for something to eat. We looked at a nearby bar, but it was mostly burgers and I had a hankering for pizza. Luckily one block in the other direction was Beach Pizza, so we had a large pizza (half and half toppings) between us, which we finished with about 8 minutes to go to sunset.

We walked swiftly back down to the beach to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, bringing with it not only a close to the day, but a metaphorical close to the holiday as well.

We went back to our room, had a coffee and some cookies, packed the last of our belongings into the cases (and despite my doubts, Andrew fitted everything back into his case), and then checked out of the hotel. We did the short drive to the rental car return at the airport (5 miles, 20 minutes, and the first and only time in the LA area that we hadn’t been in a big queue). We were on a shuttle bus which departed almost immediately, disembarking at Terminal 2. We had a reasonably smooth check in and trip through security, just a short queue and my bag got searched because my iPad confused the picture. We then had a 10 minute walk to the international terminal, which included crossing over the domestic security lines…this reminded us of Atlanta last year, and we were very glad not to be in that.

We made it way to the Star Alliance lounge, which rather wonderfully had an outside terrace area. Yes, it is dark, but it was nice to get some cool, fresh air (well…there was an overriding smell of jet fuel, and we could see all the smog in LosAngeles earlier but, ignoring that, it’s fresh!) before being in a plane for many hours. 

And that’s it. The flight home will be in tomorrow’s blog, because it will very nearly be tomorrow by the time we depart LA, and it already is tomorrow at home.