It Never Rains in Southern California

We turned in the camper , Wednesday the 8th,  then all piled into a Ford van, along with a Swiss family(not that one), and headed for the airport in order to pick up a rental van. The Swiss family was catching a flight home. The rental process went surprisingly smoothly, as I used the self serve kiosk since I had a reservation number. We did what the kiosk asked, grabbed our confirmation receipt, and headed out into the car area where we had our choice of  three vans. In the end we got a white one, and then I entered the queue leaving the garage, intending to pick up the crew at ground level, where they were guarding the bags. The attendant gave me directions, which I followed easily, and soon I found myself headed for San Jose, albeit by myself. I managed a rapid change of direction, without the help of the GPS (turning around when possible and no, it was not a legal U-turn), and headed back in the direction I had just come. I followed the route the RV shuttle driver had followed on the way to drop us off, and sure enough, there were my doughty little travellers, standing guard over the baggage. I pulled in, and after a moment or two of trying to figure out how to stow the back seats, an Alamo Car Rental attendant came over and set things aright. We loaded our bags, many of them, and headed of in the direction I had just come from, only this time with a full van, towards Pacific Grove.