Day 20 - Thu 14 May

Our last 50's Diner
Well, it's the final day of our holiday, and after finishing off most of our packing we went for breakfast in the 50's diner up the street.
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Still being watched by the police
They're everywhere!
After breakfast we checked out. We had two last places to visit on the way to the airport, the home of Mythbusters, and Walmart.
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I'm here!
This will probably not mean a lot to most of you, but this is the home of the Mythbusters show, one of Peter's favourites. On the show they check out "myths", e.g. do you get wetter running or walking in the rain? or can explosives be used to clean the inside of a concrete mixer?, the usual stuff you ask yourself everyday :)

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Mythbusters HQ
As you can see it's pretty unexciting, just some warehouse space in an industrial area of San Francisco. All the "magic" takes place behind that grey roller door on the left. This is actually the home of M5 industries, the company that one of the presenters on the show (Jamie Hyneman) owns. It's a special effects company that makes gadgets and things for movies and adverts. They film the show inside the warehouse, and out at various testing locations when they need more space.
The car in front has obviously been used in some myth testing somehow?
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A fan message
There is a sign on the door advising fans that they are not set up for visits or tours, so the outside of the building is pretty much all you can see. Some fans have left messages in the dust of the roller door.
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Elaine and the "hire car"
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Mythbusters .. Ground Zero
While we were outside, the roller door started to open ... so we actually got to see insde. It looks just like it does on the show ... perhaps you have to be a fan to appreciate the beauty of it?.
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The inner workings
What's nice is that it's not a set, but the actual workshop they use on a daily basis.
The guy that came out was very friendly (not one of the cast) but he told us we were lucky because the shutters are not normally raised unless they're filming. Also, he was just coming out to clean off the car we had been looking at, which had been used in a myth, something to do with aerodynamics, so we were lucky to see that before it was cleaned off as well.
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The actual flying machine from series one!
OK. OK ... perhaps Peter is getting a little too excited, and we should move on ... Walmart here we come, for one last shopping spree.
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Not Walmart
As you can see that's our plane "Cosmic Girl", and not a Walmart store. It turns out that the address we had for Walmart, was for one of their corporate headquarters buildings, and not a store :( The nice lady in reception says it happens all the time, and even had printed maps to show us where the nearest stores were. Apparently there are none in San Francisco, so we would have had to travel 30 odd miles south or over the bridge to Oakland. Both out as we only had an hour or so to kill before we had to get to the airport.
Anyway, we did find a local Petco & Target, but apart from a couple of things for the new puppy, didn't get anything. (Fans of peanut butter M&Ms at Peter's work are going to be dissapointed).
All uneventful checking in, our flight left on time, arrved early, then we had to wait 30 minutes to actually park up so we could get off :( Needless to say no one was too happy about that, but you wouldn't be in Britain if you didn't have too wait! Eventually got through passport control, and waited for our bags ... we got the first 2 quite quickly then we waited quite a long while for the third. The carousel was getting pretty empty so we went to the desk ... bad news:( Apparently our third bag had been stopped by security and so had missed the plane. (They were on orange alert, phasers on stun, or something?) So about half a dozen bags had missed it. We filled out the paperwork, and were assured it would be with us tomorrow.
Anyway, off out to the waiting taxi and home ... sad that it's all over, but it was a great holiday.
PS. Elmo says "hi", but he was packed so didn't get a chance to make an appearance.
PPS. The 8 hour interactive slide show will be prepared ASAP :)
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Driven today - 22 miles

Running total - 2,633 miles .. phew

Flown today - 5,361 miles

Flown previously - 5,235 miles

Total travelled - 13,229 miles
(coincidently the exact mileage of this "pre owned" Toyota Sienna van ...
https://secure.nexteppe.com/advantagescionny.com/vehicle.asp?v=731888)
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