We readied ourselves for the day and finished our packing. Carol was picking us up at 10am, so we dropped our cases at left luggage and went out front to await her arrival. And arrive she did, bang on time. Carol drives a 12 year old Infinity Q35, which surprised me a little, as it's a big car and she's so petite. It is well spec'd, with leather interior and heated AND cooled seats, amongst the toys. I sat in the front, as Carol drove us to our destination, Manhattan Beach. The towns around here seem to take their name from the beach, if you get what I mean, the town is Manhattan Beach, not Manhattan.
It's about 20 minutes from the hotel to MB and we were soon there. Carol pointed out some things of interest along the way, including a street a little way from the seafront, where her son lives. MB is a bit of a rich man's playground, by the looks of it, so it seemed Carol's son must be quite successful. A proud mum revealed he is, being able to retire at 40! I wish :-(
As we search for a parking space, the place is heaving already, we spotted where we were going to have breakfast, Uncle Bill's. They were queueing in the street. No big deal though, as the sun was blazing and the temperature was already approaching the nineties. Parked up we made our way round to Bill's and added our name to the list of those waiting. The girl said it would be 30 minutes, so we walked along the main street to kill some time. Passing an estate agents (realtor), we were intrigued to see what was on offer. I don't remember all the details but I recall seeing 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, plus the price, $6.5m!
Back at Bill's, we sat in their waiting room, some white plastic chairs on the sidewalk. Catherine went up to check how much longer it would be, just as the girl called out her name. Perfect timing. We were shown to an outside table where we studied the menu. In the main we've been having fairly light breakfasts, so I just had 2 eggs and pancakes. Unlike in Winslow though, these pancakes were 'normal' size. Not like our UK pancakes, that we'd have on Shrove Tuesday but several millimetres thick, almost like a Scottish pancake. On the side, I had some bacon. I don't know what it is but I do like their crispy bacon.
I forget what Catherine had, possibly just eggs and hash browns but I do know she wasn't happy with her toast, pale brown one side, just pale the other, so she sent it back. Also, she had ordered rye bread, which, everywhere else we had had it, was a dark brown, with a slight aniseed flavour to it. This was just a white bread, as far as we could see.
Having finished, Carol insisted on treating us, which was kind, so we put down the tip. We then made our way down the hill to the small pier, with its oddly named roundhouse aquarium at the end. Odd because the building is octagonal. I guess round was easier to say than build, eh?
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| Carol & Catherine, Manhattan Beach Pier |
With one eye on the time, parking was for 2 hours only, we made our way back up from the seafront and back to the car. Catherine was like a cat on a hot tin roof, as she sat in the car, the leather was scorching. It certainly was a great day to be at the beach.
It wasn't long before we were back at the hotel. Hugs and kisses abounded as we said our goodbye to Carol. It was really nice to be able to see her again and we shall definitely try to meet up, if her and Dean come back to London. We had about 90 minutes to kill before 3pm, our planned departure time for the airport but after collecting our bags and sitting in the lobby for a while, I noticed there was quite a queue for the shuttle bus, so we decided we'd be better off getting on that, sooner rather than later and waiting at the airport, than at the hotel.
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