i'm no sucker

the rest of our trip went by pretty quickly.  on our last full day, we took one last trip into town for this:

yup, we did the "swimming with dolphins" encounter.  and unfortunately i have zero photos to share because they made everyone leave all of their belongings in locker during the experience.  not that there weren't photos taken, because there were - by their photographers, and with a pretty hefty $300 price tag for the pictures and video.  while i'm usually an easy target for souvenir photos, even i couldn't justify paying that much - especially on top of what we had already coughed up for the outing.  oh well.

the next day, we got all of our stuff packed back into our suitcases and took one last golf cart up the hill to check out of the resort.

and then one last meal (and caramel latte!) in the marketplace.

we took a cab to the airport, where we were relieved to find that the widely-reported travel delays weren't affecting our flight home.  we boarded our plane and were up in the air right on time.

and just a little over two hours later, we landed at LAX.

as we battled traffic on our way home from the airport, we passed a brush fire that had obviously just started and was spreading fast.  eek.

at least teddy and cocoa were pretty excited to welcome us home.

and that wrapped up our big summer trip for 2022.