Back to the coast

We reluctantly left Palm Springs around lunch on Monday.  Of course we had to have one last swim in that delightful pool.  From there, Leon drove me to the Hobby Lobby so I could get my supply of sock wool.  Yes, I am crocheting socks as a pass time while we drive long distances.  I am not very productive mind you, as I like to look at the scenery more than down at my stitches.  And I like to keep Leon company.  I made my purchase and we quickly turned southwest towards San Diego.

We got a bit off track a few times so it took us a lot longer to get to destination than planned.  We arrived in San Diego just at sunset, a bit blinded.  We ended up on the bridge that takes us over the San Diego Bay to Coronado and the long stretch of beach where we camped for 2 night, Silver Strands State Park.  I really enjoy the state parks and like to stay there whenever we can.  They are typically well located, with clean washrooms, sometimes with showers.  This site was right on the beach where we watched the sunset and enjoyed the morning surf.

Our second day in San Diego was mostly spent sitting at Midas Muffler getting our brakes serviced.  The road to and from the desert is quite elevated, so you don’t want to have faulty brakes.  It seemed to me that I could hear the brakes squeal, so I suggested we have them checked.  We sat in the waiting room for a long while as Leon checked his email and I read that book I couldn’t put down – A town like Alice.  I supposed I could have been working on my socks, but the book was just drawing me in.  For lunch, we walked over to a Pho restaurant and had a great meal.

When the camper was finally ready, we wanted to stop for supplies at Walmart and buy a GPS as we forgot our buddy Bruce at home in my car.  We ended up at Costco and couldn’t find a thing we needed.  The GPS they had was $200, the bread only came in packages of 2 and all the other items were just too large.  We bought some butter and a great slab of steelhead trout and got the heck out of there!  Then we stopped for gas, after a very difficult circuit to get into the entrance.  Not very shopper friendly!

We drove back south to look through Imperial Beach for a campground.  I guess they don’t have one anymore as we never did see one.  But we did find a Walmart and bought a GPS for a more reasonable price.  This is a Magellan brand.  I think for now I will call her Manic Maggy.  Her voice is horrible and we have to check through the settings to find a more suitable voice.  In the end, we decided to go back to the state park for another night and a nice walk on the beach.  Gosh the weather has been so perfect!

Today’s activities mostly involved touring the USS Midway, a very large airplane carrier.  I didn’t know the Navy was so involved in airplanes.  Here I thought it was all about ships, not planes and helicopters.  Well I got a good education on that today.  I would have taken many pictures, but of course my camera battery went after the first 10 minutes there.  We spent over 3 hours looking at all the parts of the ships and taking a self-guided tour.  It was a great way to spend the day.

When that was done, we found a lovely campground in Chula Vista on the marina.  Some friends from Langley had told me about it.  It didn’t take long for us to get into the pool for a nice swim.  We met a lovely couple who told us all about their adventures on their sailboat.  They had sailed down to the Panama canal and over to France years ago.  I can’t imagine!

Dinner was that delicious trout I bought yesterday.  We have leftovers for another big meal tomorrow.  We are staying here for 2 nights and then we plan to move on to Yuma, Arizona.  Hopefully I will get some great pictures of the desert along the way.