Our California Adventure

The last week of June we took a few days for a family vacation to San Diego. We piled into our Durango with all our camping gear and plenty of snacks and headed West. We spent the first night (Friday) in Animas at my parent's house so that we wouldn't have to wake up quite so early the next morning. Saturday we got up, piled into our car, and headed to Tucson, AZ where we had a stop to make. We decided that is was time that we become a two car family and had decided to buy something in Tucson on our way through. The plan was to buy something small, economical, and with a working A/C (all of which our Durango is not), park our Durango at a friend's house, and drive the new car to San Diego, picking up the D. on our way home. We had enough money to pay cash, but due to some mistakes with a money transfer we only had access to half of our funds. We didn't think it would be a big deal, since we'd still be able to put down 3/4 of the purchase price in cash we figured financing the last couple thousand dollars would be easy. Turns out banks don't like to lend that small of an amount. Especially when you're from out of state. And have no credit history. So basically we spent an entire day hanging around the dealership (outside, because it was a tiny place and they didn't have room for us in there) in the baking heat of a sunny Tucson summer day and had no car to show for it. Finally, we just paid what we could put down, and left the new car to wait for us to come back from San Diego and pick it up on our way home, after our money situation had been worked out.

This left us in our not air conditioned car for the drive across the deserts of Southern Arizona. 111 degrees. With 2 kids. Luckily we had come prepared to deal with this potential situation. I had several gallons of water and a couple of spray bottles. I draped a light weight blanket, soaked with water, over Sharli's car seat so she could benefit from the evaporative cooling effect that would produce. Erik and Ethan had a water fight with the spray bottles until Erik was ready to take a nap, at which time he was wrapped in a blanket just like Sharli's and ended up getting so cold he was shivering when he woke up. Ethan and I tried to keep cool with the water as best we could, but we were both fighting heat exhaustion when we stopped in Yuma for dinner. It was one of the more miserable drives I've ever been on, but we survived, and had a lot of fun on the rest of our trip. We pulled into San Diego late that night and set up camp, right next to my parents, Marquette and Cameron, and some of our Neil cousins.

Sunday we enjoyed a lazy morning, then we made a bee-line for the beach. This is how Sharli spent most of her beach time...

 Erik employed a bit more creativity. He would run and splash in the water until he got too cold, then he'd either sit and snuggle with Grandpa or Grandma or...

...find some nice warm sand to play in. 

 The adults all took turns between staying on the beach with the babies and going out to play in the surf. Here's a shot of the guys out swimming in the waves.

That's them WAY out there. That tiny black dot. No, the other tiny black dot. Oh well.

While in San  Diego we also visited the Point Loma lighthouse, toured the USS Midway, ate some fresh fish (and chips, of course), rode the ferry over to Coronado Island, and just enjoyed the time spent with our family.

Point Loma Lighthouse

 Riding the ferry:

Our ride back to Tucson wasn't nearly as bad as we'd gotten an earlier start to our day. We were able to pay the rest of our money and pick up our new car, so Ethan and the kids drove it home while I followed in the Durango. We really like the new car, which is a VW Passat, and especially love the money it's saving us on gas! 

Despite the hot ride and the long drive we loved the time we got to spend with our family. And San Diego is always amazing, so of course we had a marvelous time!