Day 353 (Mon 25 June) - Simi Valley, Los Angeles

Last day of our rather epic trip.

Slept, having set as many alarms as we could. Woke at 3am and having got ourselves sorted drove to the car hire place near LAX.

We were very nervous as we didn't know how much we would have to pay for the damage to the car. Found the pound and drove in and explained to the supervisor the issue. He basically looked at the damage and laughs us off. We took this as the equivalent of saying 'Get outta here, you crazy Brits'. So we did.

Took the shuttle bus to the airport, during which Sarb struck up his usual chit chat with the driver.

Check in was a right pain. Two problems. 1) They had a self service check in thing going where basically it went wrong each time. It just did not work. 2) They were attempting queuing LA style. Like the rides at Universal it looked like you were getting to the end, only to turn a corner and see it snaking out to the horizon. At various intervals they would call people out of the queue that were likely to miss their flights. Call me old fashioned but if they want to know about queuing they would only need to fly the average Brit, call them a 'Human Embarkation Consultant (Airborne Division)', pay them a thousand pounds a day and problem sorted.

Our flight was not till 7.35am so once we eventually got to the other side we didn't have much time before we were called. Settled in and flew to New York for about 4pm. Most of the flight was spent with Sarb glued to the window watching the wide expanses of desert and farms. (Sarb has a secret: he has always wanted to go to Nebraska. Go figure!!)

Sat around the airport for a few hours for our connection that we duly got at 6.50pm.

Tried to sleep but couldn't really. Mixed emotions on flying back to London.