LA to New York
We were up early this morning for our drive back into LA. We thought we were leaving way too early as per usual but the traffic turns out to be even worse that we'd anticipated! An hour in and the eta was slipping later and later as we were almost in continual congestion! As someone who likes to be slightly early at the very least this wasn't good for stress levels.
Carly drove really well with bright sun in our eyes and the American driving continued to amaze with undercutting and lane hogging like you've never seen! The eta had slipped to past 10am (when we needed to get the car back) plus an additional 45 minutes of potential congestion on the highway. At this point good old Google came to the rescue and directed us off the highway and into a residential area.
This shaved off an expected 15 minutes of the journey and at least 45 minutes of congestion saved. The new route was still crazy busy but more direct and we crawled through some pretty neighbourhoods with huge houses! The eta continued to climb back up and the traffic eventually started to speed back up and we were able to join back on the highway into town.
We managed to top up on fuel in extra quick time and by the time we had performed one final legal u-turn and pulled into the car return we were given our official time in of 9:59am, surviving any overtime charges by a whole minute. And relax.... a short shuttle ride later and we were back at LAX for our penultimate flight over to NYC. We've been in whatsapp contact with Mark and the beer and weather both look superb!
Carly managed to get our tickets changed so that we were sat together, having originally been apart and a free seat next to us for a stretch! We've gotten pretty used to spending time at airports over the last few months and we were able to finish ordering photos of the trip which will hopefully be waiting for us when we arrive back home.
The flight was relatively non eventful with the usual movies watched to pass the time. I watched the Fellowship of the Ring for the umpteenth time and the first time since being in New Zealand. Having explored the country you can see why Peter Jackson chose it as his version of Middle Earth. It was very cool watching the scenes in the Shire following our afternoon back at Hobbiton a month or so ago.
Upon landing our baggage came through relatively quickly and we jumped in an Uber Pool. We shared our journey into Manhattan with a guy from London who'd gotten cheap flights by training to Birmingham, flying to Dublin, back to Heathrow and finally on to New York! He'd saved a bit of money but it sounded like a right faff to us!
We arrived at a bar in the middle of the city and met up with Wrigs and Jason. It was so lovely to see them, Jason's moved out to New York and we haven't seen Mark for three months so it was great to catch up! They'd been at the bar since 5pm and we arrived just as the world series was getting interesting. It's been great to watch the games over the last few weeks and today was the conclusion with things tied up at 3-3.
The cubs haven't won the world series since 1908, the longest drought in professional US sport. The game went into overtime but eventually the cubs pulled through in the tenth innings! It was a great atmosphere in the bar with the bartender who was a lifelong fan bursting into tears after the game was won! We eventually finished up about 2am and headed back to the AirBnB for more of a catch up and bed ahead of a day exploring tomorrow!
We were up early this morning for our drive back into LA. We thought we were leaving way too early as per usual but the traffic turns out to be even worse that we'd anticipated! An hour in and the eta was slipping later and later as we were almost in continual congestion! As someone who likes to be slightly early at the very least this wasn't good for stress levels.
Carly drove really well with bright sun in our eyes and the American driving continued to amaze with undercutting and lane hogging like you've never seen! The eta had slipped to past 10am (when we needed to get the car back) plus an additional 45 minutes of potential congestion on the highway. At this point good old Google came to the rescue and directed us off the highway and into a residential area.
This shaved off an expected 15 minutes of the journey and at least 45 minutes of congestion saved. The new route was still crazy busy but more direct and we crawled through some pretty neighbourhoods with huge houses! The eta continued to climb back up and the traffic eventually started to speed back up and we were able to join back on the highway into town.
We managed to top up on fuel in extra quick time and by the time we had performed one final legal u-turn and pulled into the car return we were given our official time in of 9:59am, surviving any overtime charges by a whole minute. And relax.... a short shuttle ride later and we were back at LAX for our penultimate flight over to NYC. We've been in whatsapp contact with Mark and the beer and weather both look superb!
Carly managed to get our tickets changed so that we were sat together, having originally been apart and a free seat next to us for a stretch! We've gotten pretty used to spending time at airports over the last few months and we were able to finish ordering photos of the trip which will hopefully be waiting for us when we arrive back home.
The flight was relatively non eventful with the usual movies watched to pass the time. I watched the Fellowship of the Ring for the umpteenth time and the first time since being in New Zealand. Having explored the country you can see why Peter Jackson chose it as his version of Middle Earth. It was very cool watching the scenes in the Shire following our afternoon back at Hobbiton a month or so ago.
Upon landing our baggage came through relatively quickly and we jumped in an Uber Pool. We shared our journey into Manhattan with a guy from London who'd gotten cheap flights by training to Birmingham, flying to Dublin, back to Heathrow and finally on to New York! He'd saved a bit of money but it sounded like a right faff to us!
We arrived at a bar in the middle of the city and met up with Wrigs and Jason. It was so lovely to see them, Jason's moved out to New York and we haven't seen Mark for three months so it was great to catch up! They'd been at the bar since 5pm and we arrived just as the world series was getting interesting. It's been great to watch the games over the last few weeks and today was the conclusion with things tied up at 3-3.
The cubs haven't won the world series since 1908, the longest drought in professional US sport. The game went into overtime but eventually the cubs pulled through in the tenth innings! It was a great atmosphere in the bar with the bartender who was a lifelong fan bursting into tears after the game was won! We eventually finished up about 2am and headed back to the AirBnB for more of a catch up and bed ahead of a day exploring tomorrow!
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