Hello California!

We have arrived!!!

After waaaaaaaaay too many hours in the car, we arrived in San Diego, CA, ready to head straight for our hotel and see whatever sights could be seen out the window while stretched out comfortably on our beds :) It was a long car day people - by hour 28 in the car, I had taken to braiding my hair from back to front (mostly just to see if I could), all the while talking to myself. Other fun bits from today's journey:

~ New Mexico is not exciting. I slept through it.

~ Arizona is hot. HOT. Like 112 degrees hot. Also, what do you think of when you think of Arizona? (Besides grey panthers.) Cactus! Hollywood sold us Midwesterners on this myth for years, so imagine my disappointment when it wasn't until 168 miles into Arizona, before I saw my first cactus! They're not as green as Hollywood would have you believe either. Still, worth seeing eventually.

~ California is more mountainy than expected. We drove at least 4000 ft upward, and then 4000 ft back down to get to San Diego. I'll leave the rest of my opinions of California until morning, because I'm anxious for Sea World and In-and-Out Burger.

~ Apparently, two white folks in a large Expedition loaded down with computer parts, clothes, Cheerios boxes, and enough books to start their own public library do not scream "transporting-illegal drugs or peoples" to the U.S. Border Patrol. Through several checkpoints, we barely got a nod from the guards; how do they know we don't have a couple of illegal immigrants hidden underneath the boxes of office supplies? The most thorough search we got was by a portly FDA guard who wanted to make sure we weren't smuggling fresh fruit in our cooler. I was also terribly disappointed to not encounter any Minute Men; why traverse the U.S.-Mexico border if you're not going to get into a shouting match with a large Arizonian carrying an AK-47, vowing to protect the border by any means necessary?

~ Our previous record of 1 mile off the highway to hit up a Dairy Queen has been broken; today we straggled 3 whole miles :) Hmmmm, that chocolate cone was mighty tasty; I'd say three miles worth of gasoline tasty!

That concludes our "Go West Young Man" journey, Part 1. After NavyGuy completes his survival training, we'll still need to venture approximately 21 hours north to our final destination: Whidbey Island, WA. Maybe on that leg of the trip, I'll relearn how to French braid my hair!