Sunny San Diego

A couple weeks ago H. and I took a road trip out to San Diego to visit family and deliver a car to my brother. My dad had found an inexpensive Infiniti (actually it was a 'nfinity'; just the lesser known counterpart) and needed a way to deliver it to my brother so we jumped at the chance. Seemed like a fun, cheap adventure for us. The total drive from Austin, TX to San Diego, CA was about 20 hours and 1,300 miles. Wow. We took off on a Tuesday morning, just after working our 10pm - 7am shift, and we set a rule that neither of us could fall asleep the whole time. At one point we put in some books on tape that my parents had given us and about 5 minutes into it I looked over to see H in the passengers seat with her eyes closed. Needless to say, I punched her in the arm and that was the end of story time.

The worst part had to be that we didn't bring CD's, counting instead on the tape plug-in to our iPods. Then, 20 minutes on the highway we realize it's broken. We played so many games - favorites guessing games, 'newlyweds' style questions (what would your spouse say is your favorite outfit; who would your spouse say is the better catch - yeah, guess her answer), words games, country letter games (oslo, oregon, new hampshire, ethiopia, arkansas...), 20 questions (which I won every time.) Now we know so much about each other we would win any quiz show, blindfolded.

We pulled into Las Cruces, NM around 7 pm, and we were asleep in our La Quinta hotel room by 8 pm. The next morning we explored the historic part of the city. It took us about an hour to walk in and out of every open shop, and to stop at a cafe to have some delicious Mexican food. Overall the town was a little... quiet... and brown. It was nice weather, though! The only exciting thing about the drive through NM was me accidently going East after a gas stop. Seems when you're driving through the desert there's no need for exit ramps. For over 10 miles. Seriously. After 10 miles of driving the wrong direction with no chance of getting off the highway, we challenged the law and took a U-turn on a median that was "For Official Use Only." Ooooh... rebels. Also, we must have cruised through 5 different 'border patrol' stops. Apparently we look American citizen-y because we made it through each time with out incident.


We actually liked the drive through Arizona a lot better. Maybe part of that is because we picked up a new tape plug-in thingy. But the scenery was really beautiful - the colors, the rock formations, and the awesome saguaro cacti. H. had to stop three separate times to get a good photo of those.

And then on to California. The weather was perfect; though, what else could one expect of southern California. We had such a fun, relaxing time. We drove up to Huntington Beach to visit more family, including a new baby cousin! She was so very precious. It was really great to see everyone, catch up on news, and have H. meet more family. We explored my brother and sister-in-law's neighborhood a bit. I was a big fan of the local coffee shop, where we walked their pup to one morning.

My family was wonderful. We were treated to more than one delicious meal to celebrate; and my aunt bought both H. and I new clothes from my cousin's store, including two great dresses that we then wore to Christine's wedding the next week.

On the morning before we left we drove to Coronado Island, and sat in the sun on the beach. I forgot how relaxing that kind of trip is. It was so great, and way too short. I realized, as I returned to work the following evening, that it really balanced me out. I had not felt that happy or calm in some time. We already have plans to go back soon!