California

We spent the halfway point of our trip at Josh's house in San Diego. This was my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, and if I had to compare La Jolla Beach to Wilmington, the main thing I'd mention is seaweed. Lots and lots of seaweed. Also seals. (Sea lions?)


Driving into California, I managed to ruin my car, so I had to spend our first day in San Diego at a Toyota dealership getting it repaired. In my defense...the roads out there in the Southwest are so straight, it's easy to forget to pay attention to your driving. All you have to do is hold the steering wheel straight, put on the cruise control, and you're good to go for a hundred miles.

So there I was, admiring the scenery and chatting with Cole, when I heard a strange noise. I glanced in the rearview mirror and didn't see anything behind me, so I kept on. But the car continued to periodically make a strange noise. When we stopped for dinner, I checked out the front of the car and didn't see anything, so again we continued on. I assumed that the strange noise was something weird about California's roads, and I made a mental note to ask Josh about it.

And then we were stopped at a border patrol checkpoint. "Do you know that the front of your car is hanging off?" the border patrolman asked.

Um, no. I did not. As soon as we got through the checkpoint, I pulled over, and this time, I got down on my hands and knees to inspect the front of the car. Sure enough, the underside of the car (what I now know is called the splash guard) was bashed in and hanging loose. Thankfully, it was a relatively inexpensive repair, and I was lucky it wasn't a popped tire.

I'm still not quite sure what I hit, though I assume it was one of those loose pieces of tire you always see on the interstate.

We spent the second day in San Diego at the beach, and then Michael flew in on Friday night, bringing the rain with him. On Saturday, the rain let up long enough for us to go to the Mormon Battalion museum in Old Town, where Tessa made my favorite comment of the trip. Describing the sister missionary who led our tour, Tessa said, "She was a little weird, but that's her job." Which describes all sister missionaries everywhere.

We finished up San Diego with more rain on Sunday, and then packed up the car with one extra passenger on Monday morning to head to Las Vegas.

A couple final photos that make me laugh...

Eli about to plow me over

George splashing me (and my camera)