Day 21 homeward bound

So, our grand tour comes to an end today.  I hate last days!  I never seem to have a plan except to get to the airport on time.  It's the only part of holidays that really stresses me.  I don't like to do anything late.

So with a very loose plan of visiting the coast we had a quick hotel breakfast, packed and repacked trying to make everything fit and not to be too heavy!  One large and one medium case was the wrong decision, Two large next time!

We headed West out of Castro Valley and crossed the San Mateo bridge in the direction of half moon bay and Highway 1, the Pacific coast road.  It was a journey that should have taken just over half an hour but as we crossed the hills before the coast we hit slow moving traffic.  Unfortunately there wasn't much we could do, single lane traffic and no turn offs.  We feared it might be all the way to the coast.  After about 20 mins or so we passed through a small farming community where each farm had their pumpkins laid out and they had laid of activities for families like haunted houses, pony rides and bouncy castles.  This it appeared was the hold up!  People looking plus those pulling in and out of the farms!

We drove a little way  south down highway 1 and after a couple of attempts found somewhere to park the car.  It was actually at a hotel called Ritz-carlton that had spaces for the publuc to park and allowed access to the coastal trail through their grounds and golf course.  It was lovely, the sun  was shining and we walked down to the beach listening to the waves crashing. We walking a little further along the cliffs path beford turning back.

Back in the car and we followed highway 1 north.  We would have stopped a few times but the lovely weather  combined with a bank holiday weekend had brought the masses out to the coast.  Some of the days were packed with surfers.

We eventually stopped for a burger in a shopping mall near Daly City.  With a couple of hours still to waste we wandered round a Target and an attached shopping mall before giving up and heading to the airport.

We returned the car to the car rental garage (the Kia has done us well over the last 3 weeks,  2775 miles in total!) and made our way on the airtrain to the International Terminal A.  We printed our boarding passes, and dropped off our cases before heading through security.  It was all fairly quiet and quick.

We were on the double decker A380 and had booked the very last row, as the side seats were 2's and we could recline without bothering anyone.   Much more comfortable than our journey out.