Day 66, 22nd October 2011. San Diego - Los Angeles, California

The last day of Trek America :(

Of course being the last morning, this was a very sad and weird morning, I managed to hold myself together and not cry this morning, but I really wanted to. Going into the bathrooms to get ready for the last time was strange, I was so used to making the trip with a bag full of stuff, I will never take the ease of being in a hotel for granted after this experience. 

Taking the tents down for the very last time was so sad, even though we'd had our problems with camping, these tents had been our homes and I actually felt really upset that we would never sleep in them again.

It felt like we didn't really know what to do with ourselves, so we just packed everything away and sat around chatting. We had to then fill in our questionnaires/reviews from Mark, where I definitely wrote down all mu opinions truthfully so that some of the things that had happened with us did not happen to any other groups.

Gary loading the trailer for the last time

Me and Kirsty went to the campsite shop to get some snacks and postcards, and then all of a sudden it was time to leave. I really did feel so sad about this, I'm so over emotional about things, and even though camping was something that I was ready to be over, I still felt like I didn't want to leave it. It was the weirdest feeling ever driving away from a campsite, knowing that we would not be going back to one.

We were on our way to Los Angeles today, so it wasn't very far to drive. We were meant to be going to Hollywood and the Walk Of Fame (that we had already been to) but Mark wanted to go to Venice Beach instead. It took about 3 hours in total to get there, and I made loads of bracelets in the van so that I could give them to people, and also because it gave me something to do to take my mind off how sad I was feeling.

We arrived in Venice Beach to some very un-California-ish grey weather, and it was quite cold too. To be honest, we didn't like it one bit, it would have been a lot better if it had been warm and sunny and we could have gone on the beach, but the weather was horrible. It was a really busy and rough area, we had about 2 hours to kill there, so me, Gary and Kirsty just went to a restaraunt to get some lunch.

The food was good though, and we had a nice time enjoying our last trip out just the 3 of us like it had been quite a lot of times on this trip. We just stayed there chatting for as long as we could because we didn't want to go back out until it was time to leave. We had a nice table by the window which was all open so even though it was cold, we got to see the atmosphere of the area.

When we walked back to the van, we passed the famous Muscle Beach, where there were loads of people working out. I was kind of disappointed with our Venice Beach experience because the weather was bad, and it just didn't really seem like that nice of a place. In 9 weeks on Trek America we finally went to a place we didn't like on the last day!

Then we got back in the van for the very last time. I was feeling so sad (but still keeping it together) and we drove towards the Hacienda Hotel, where we were staying tonight, and where we had stayed the night before Trek America had started. It only took about 20 minutes to get there and it was so weird just to pull up there, knowing that 9 weeks ago we had left this place and were starting the biggest adventure of our lives, and now it was over. I felt my eyes starting to get tears getting out of the van and unpacking the trailer for the last time, but I still managed to hold them in while we checked into our rooms.

And that was it, our wonderful trip with Trek America was over. Luckily we were still going to see everyone tonight, so there was no need for goodbyes just yet. We had a few hours to just relax and stuff, and we had all agreed to meet downstairs at 8pm.

Me and Gary got all our stuff in the room and proceeded to unpack our stuff all over the floor until the room was a huge mess. We didn't really do anything over the next few hours, just showered and I painted my nails and got ready to say our goodbyes. I knew I was going to be an emotional wreck over the next 24 hours so I just prepared myself for that. Kirsty came over to the room for a while and I think we also visited her room. It was the strangest feeling that just over 9 weeks ago, me and Gary were walking around the hotel and kept seeing people on their own and saying 'that might be someone on our trip', and now we were here after spending all this time with them and it hurt so much knowing that we were going to have to say goodbye.

So at 8pm we went downstairs to meet the others, and we decided just so stay in the hotel bar for the evening. Kait had taken her group out to her sisters for the evening so they would not be joining us until later, and Mark didn't even say bye to us.

We just spent the next few hours drinking and reminiscing over the whole trip, and just enjoying each others company for the last time. We also ordered some food which was nice, we had calamari and fries and some other stuff too.

BFF's with matching tattoo's

I love these 2 girls so much, so glad they were on this trip with me

Then finally at about 11.30pm, the other group returned. I was so glad to have them here with us finally, and thats when the tears that I had been holding in all day started escaping.

The first person that left was Zoe, because she had a really early flight in the morning. That's when I started crying majorly because she is one of the nicest people I had ever met and I really would miss her so much. Then I had to say goodbye to Simone and I had to tell her all over again how thankful I was that she had done all that stuff for our wedding, she is such a kind and thoughtful person and I wanted her to know how much all that she had done had meant to us. I told her a million times over but I still feel like I can never thank her enough.

Luckily we were going to be able to space out the goodbye's a bit as we were going to see quite a few people in the morning, but some had early flights so we had so say goodbye now. We said goodbye to Matt, Amelia and Mike. Which was all full of tears too, and I also gave everyone the bracelets that I had made earlier in the day. Eventually we had to leave the bar because it closed, but we just went out into the hotel lobby and continued to all hug each other and cry.

Me, Gary and Kirsty had planned to have a last breakfast together at Ihop in the morning, and we ended up inviting everyone to come, so we all agreed to meet in the morning to go there together. I was a total emotional wreck and didn't stop crying once I had started, so I did lots of telling people how much I loved them and hugging everyone before we all started to go to bed. On the way back to the room we saw Justine, Cece and Zoe again and I did some more crying and hugging.

Got into the room at about 1.30am and because of all the emotions I was just wide awake. Gary was so tired so he went straight to sleep, but I had a bath, and then sat in bed watching Brothers and Sisters until I fell asleep. It was really annoying in the room because we had single beds, that were on opposite sides of the room, I really felt like I needed a cuddle from Gary but he was so far away.