Our flight tonight leaves at 8.30 pm so we left San Diego and set off for a leisurely drive along the coast on Pacific Highway No 1. This took us through places like San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Long Beach and finally LA. During the drive we stopped off at ‘Cappy’s Café’ for a lunchtime snack but found it was more like a restaurant than a café. We weren’t hungry enough for a full blown meal, we only really wanted a sandwich or something like that, however the menu looked good so knowing how big these Americans like their meals, we decided to be on the safe side and order three meals between the four of us.
Emma ordered a Chicken Caesar Salad (you can’t seem to just order a salad in this country; it has to belong to somebody else first), Sophia ordered Potato Skins and Pauline and I ordered a chicken sandwich between us. Emma’s salad was brought up in something the size of a punch bowl, she could just about see over the top of it without standing up and Sophia was brought two large jacket potatoes scraped out and filled with more food than you could fit into two footballs. When our chicken sandwich arrived it looked like a small boiled dinosaur between toasted bread. They had to winch it up onto the table. We staggered out of Cappy’s Café vowing in future to just order two meals between the four of us but of course it was too late, we were going home and would never again have this problem.
As we drove nearer to LA and the airport it suddenly occurred to us that we had no idea where the Hertz car drop-off point was. It was obviously close to the airport because we’d taken that shuttle bus to it when we arrived but where near the airport we did not know. Pauline suggested that we drove straight to LA airport arrivals, wait until we saw a Hertz bus and then follow it. Easy and straight forward eh?
This easy and straight forward idea caused more chaos and dangerous driving on my part than at any other time during the whole of the past three weeks.
As we approached the short term let-down and pickup zones at the arrivals terminal we saw a Hertz shuttle bus. Easy peasy.
“There’s one up there,” everyone shouted as I slowly cruised right past it in an outside lane.
“You’ve missed it, now you’re in front of it. We can’t follow it now,” they all shouted.
“Don’t worry, I’ll slow down in this lane and he’ll have to go past me in that lane,” I shouted back ignoring the streams of cars behind me honking at me to go faster, “Here he comes now.” The trouble was the bus then decided to stop and pick up some passengers and however slowly I went, and by now I’d almost stopped as well, the bus would never catch me up.
“I’ll stop. I’ll stop.” I yelled.
“Not in this lane you can’t,” shouted Pauline.
“I know. I know that,” I screamed back, “I’ll pull over behind this other airport bus that’s picking up passengers.”
I eased the car into the kerb, “No I won’t,” I shouted as another bus behind me started to hoot at me non-stop telling me that I couldn’t park there because it was his pick-up point.
I was out in the traffic again in seconds. By this time the Hertz bus had re-started and was coming alongside me.
“It’s OK, I can follow it now,” I shouted as the bus disappeared around a corner while we were suddenly stuck at some traffic lights.
“It’s all right, I can still see it through those buildings over there,” said Sophia.
The airport road we were on was littered with traffic lights and pedestrian crossings so in between trying to change lanes, catch up with the bus and checking the lights I also had to make sure I didn’t run over any bloody pedestrians.
“Come on, come on you short-legged, slow, lumbering bastards,” I fumed under my breath as we were yet again stuck at a crossing.
We were off again. “It’s OK we’ve caught up with the bus,” I shouted.
“Go dad. Don’t dawdle. It’s moving away from us again,” shouted Emma.
Indeed it was moving away from us and it was changing lanes again too – but I couldn’t.
“It’s all right, stay in this lane,” shouted Pauline, “we can still follow it” as I overtook the damn bus yet again.
“Slow down, it’s changing lanes again. It’s behind us in our lane now,” said Pauline.
“That’s no good is it?” I screamed back, “the bus is following us now. We’re supposed to be following the bus.” More cars were hooting me.
“Right, I’m going to pull over again,” I said.
As I did, the bus soared past. I pulled out again, oblivious of the three lanes of screeching brakes and car horns behind me and nipped in behind the shuttle.
“How do we know the bloody bus is going to the Hertz car place anyway? The driver might be going home for his dinner,” I screeched at Pauline.
“Uh-oh! He’s turning on to Highway 1 East,” said Pauline, “we don’t want to go that way, it’s taking us back the way we’ve come, we don’t want to go that way at all.”
As she said that I was actually on the white line that divided the turn-off from the lane we were in and was turning right to follow the bus. I slammed on the brakes and we were stranded there, in no-man’s land, in between the traffic going straight ahead and the traffic turning right.
“Well do I go right or not?” I screamed.
“Don’t know,” said Pauline
Cars behind us were getting more and more confused as they encountered this additional lane consisting of just one car with four hysterical people in it waving their arms about. Emma suddenly shouted, “It’s all right, turn right, turn right, follow the bus. I can see a sign down there that says ‘To Car Rental Pick-Up’”
What a relief. I accelerated down the right turn, caught up with the bus and followed it straight to the Hertz centre. I parked and just sat there for several minutes, my hands stuck to the driving wheel.
Pauline had to prise each finger off the wheel before I could get out.
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