Arriving in LA

Still with images of the Grand Canyon in the eyes, we left it and drove back to Las Vegas. Another long (and boring) drive within the remote countryside of the US.
Once in Las Vegas airport we discovered than depending on which side you arrive (city or outside) you will have or not signs showing you the way to the Rental Car Return parking. If it wasn't for the u-turn we had to make after driving through the whole airport and not finding any direction, we would have never seen the signs. One would think that returning a rental car is something people do often in an airport, but I might be wrong there.

We then took a very short flight to Los Angeles. Arriving at night gave us the opportunity to see the lights of the city from the sky. Man, LA is huge!
Once we had the luggage, we took a shuttle to Avis to get our rental car. I know we just dropped one.
The representative at the counter was very friendly and tried hard to sell us some extras:
- "you're such a nice couple. how about a convertible for only 20$ extra per day" - I don't think so, especially when one of the passenger is a girl with long hair (remember Bridget Jones)
- "how about an SUV, for only 10$ extra per day" - No, thank you. We're happy with our compact.
- "how about a GPS?" - No, thank you, we brought ours (aren't we so prepared? Thx Wolfram)
- "do you want the Avis 24H assistance for only 5$ per day?" - You mean the one we took for "peace of mind" in the Death Valley and realized that without cell phone network, this assistance will be useless as you cannot call them? No, thank you.
Pissed after trying all the extras, he gave us a Nissan, which at least is more reactive than the Ford. Less space but better engine... not sure it's so bad.

40min later or so (and after a stressful drive by night in the LA fast traffic which Wolfram somehow managed) we arrived at my cousin's.
I happen to have a pretty widely spread family around the globe. Conveniently, my cousin Evan lives in LA and kindly offered to host us during our stay. I always find it better to stay with family/friends when I travel for leisure. I guess I see to many hotels on business trips and want something else when it comes to vacation.

Janet and Evan welcomed us warmly. The family moved in this new house 12 days ago. Note: this new house located in Glendale has a swimming pool and a view on downtown. It was so nice of them to invite us to stay despite the recent move. They claimed the house was a mess but honestly it looked pretty ok to me (I guess they were in the operational stage).
Kids were already in bed, but they had baked cookies for us. Yummy. I just love home made cookies!

Now it's time to sleep. After all we woke up at 5am today, hiked a bit of the Grand Canyon, and flew from Las Vegas to LA. I believe we deserve some sleep.