We're Baaaack!!

Yesterday was the traveling day. Got up around 8 am - planned on a relaxing start to the day - pack up our stuff, get clean, tidy the Horizon Ontario, CA condo before we left, have some nice coffee, etc. Well I got to do some of that - but at 9:30 in walks two cleaning ladies ready to conquer the condo. It was a good thing that they came when they did and not any earlier or they might have walked in on either one of us pretty scantily clad! Gosh! Anyway, that pushed us out of the condo a bit earlier than we had planned. Our flight out of LAX wasn't until 5:40 pm, so we had some serious time to kill.

We headed out to the Coffee Bean for our morning coffee and then we hit the road. We knew it would take a while to get to the airport, what with LA traffic and all. We also knew that with returning the rental car and checking baggage, going thru security, etc. we would need some time right around the airport, so we figured if we headed that way, maybe we could find some nice place along the beach just south of the airport for a final CA lunch. Well, we did find that place. We ate at the Shellback in Manhattan Beach, CA. We both had the fish & chips & it was a great way to end the trip!

After lunch it was back to the airport - got the car checked back in, took the shuttle to the airport, got checked in and headed to the rather long security line. While in that line - LD nudges me and says, "isn't that the guy who was the boyfriend of one of the girls in Sex and the City?" I look over - and sure enough, it is James Remar (of course neither of us knew his real name when we saw him there) aka Richard Wright, who played the"boyfriend" of Kim Cattrall's character Samantha Jones on Sex and the City. It was cool to see him. I'm sure I stared too much, but he was right next to us for quite a while in the long security line, and I really had nothing else to do but people watch!

Once in the "secured" area of the airport we waited. It was like 2 pm when we got all settled in and we did some wandering, some sitting and reading, some people watching, etc. Actually the time did pass pretty quickly considering!

The plane flight home was pretty uneventful - got to see the Grand Canyon and a lot of lightning (off to our side in clouds we were above). We got into St Louis @ 11:15 pm and then had to make the drive back to Champaign. LD & I were pretty excited to sleep in our own bed, so we were going to make it home. Unfortunately we had to wait for our bags. We waited for a little while & then I went to go get the car from the parking lot a mile away or so. I got it and came to get LD & the bags...it was now 11:45 or so and still no bags! I made three laps at the St Louis arrivals area (there was one really long light I had to wait for each time) and finally LD was there with the bags. So by about 12:30 or so we were on the road. We got home at about 3:20 this morning & slept until 10:30, then LD got up to go to work. I've been watering the lawn and just putting stuff back in order since then. Soon I'll venture out for groceries...there is nothing to eat in this house!