San Diego

We loaded up this morning (June 22) in Phoenix to go to San Diego, California.  Scott said the low for the day was supposed to be 88, and the high would be 111.  We walked outside to pack the car, and at 9:00 in the morning it already felt like they had reached the high.  Scott ran back inside to the business center to print off some directions, so the girls took advantage of the tabletop checkers game in the lobby.
 

We stopped to top off our gas tank before getting into California with the higher gas prices there… and to wash off the windows.  With us traveling at night some, we have hit some pretty major bugs.  The window and the front of my car were disgusting.  There were so many bug carcasses that a bird ate its breakfast off of my grill!

Bug Guts!

We saw more fun (strange) sites along the way.  Scott spotted a huge baby in a field… you can get an idea of its size by the tractor beside it.  Don’t know why it was there, but it made for a fun picture.  We also saw several dust tornadoes.  You might have to click on the picture to enlarge it to see it more clearly.  And then there was the big “A” on the side of the mountain.  We dubbed it “Ashlee’s Mountain,” of course!

At this point in our trip we were driving alongside of Mexico.  You can see in the picture the black fencing along the interstate that serves as the border.  Then we went through a border patrol checkpoint.  One of the cars in front of us got the “full scan” with one of the border patrol agents using a mirror to search underneath their van.  I guess we didn’t look like we were helping anyone escape, so they gave us a “Have a nice day,” and we rolled on through.

The black fence separates the US from Mexico.

By the time we reached San Diego, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees, but the sun was shining, and the weather was great!  We’d had a couple of not-so-great hotel experiences so far, so now we all get a little nervous when we pull into the next one.  However, we pulled into the Catamaran Resort in San Diego, and it was beautiful.  Palm trees and beautiful flowers… a waterfall in the lobby.  And the best part - we got to our room, opened up the sliding glass door to our patio, and we were met by ducks!  There goes the loaf of sandwich bread!  They were our best friends all week.  We would open up our curtains in the mornings, and there they sat waiting for the girls to wake up and feed them breakfast. And Scott was just as bad as the girls… he gave them Doritos!  The girls tried to coax them into the room a few times until one duckie stepped over the threshold and I squealed and scared him off, much to their dismay.  No ducks allowed in the room!  I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and step in a pile of duckie poo!

The view from our patio in San Diego

Here duckie, duckie, duckie!

Trying to lure the duck into the room

Scott is relaxing while the ducks are begging for more Doritos.