It was exactly one hour and 5 minutes into our 8 am departure from the Desert Diamond Casino in Tucson, before we heard the big question. Over the next 7 1/2 hours, on our drive to the San Diego area, it's safe to say we might have heard that question just a few more times. The drive across the desert of southern Arizona & California was pretty routine, just a little longer than someone would have liked. Armed with more electronic devices than Grandpa even knew existed, they only served to occupy part of the time, as we headed westbound on Interstate 8.
Early in the morning yesterday, before we left Tucson.
My co-pilot was seriously into one of her games.
According to my GPS, the total mileage yesterday was 393, and at this point, we still had 326 to go. We made a couple of stops, one for fuel at the Flying J ($4.08 for diesel), and one for a doggie break, but other than that, it was pretty much a mindset of lets get there before it's too late in the day.During the course of our all day drive, we had to stop at 3 check points. 2 were courtesy of the Border Patrol, and one was the California Agricultural Inspection just west of Yuma. The illegal alien issue requires the Border Patrol to be pro-active, and I have no problem with stopping at any of their inspections. The California Agricultural inspections are a different matter entirely. We have driven in 49 of the 50 states in our motor home, and CA is the only state with these inspection stations. They even have these checkpoints out in the boon tulle's, on secondary highways where you enter CA. If you're in a car or pickup, they almost always just wave you through. But, if you're in an RV, that's a completely different story. Every RV has guess what? If you said a refrigerator, you would be correct.
So, as I pulled into the inspection station, I almost knew what the predictable question would be.
"Do you have any fruits or vegetables"? "Oh, yes, we have a refrigerator". When the lady came inside, and told Patty that she was confiscating a lemon, I just shook my head. No wonder the state is broke. The millions of dollars spent to support all of these inspection stations, just so they can keep an evil lemon from wreaking havoc, if allowed to cross the border, is almost laughable. Enough of that!
Gracie jumped up and stayed with Laila twice during the trip.
The second Border Patrol check stop, not too far east of San Diego.
After we arrived at the Thousand Trails, we explored a little bit of the park, and discovered a playground, and lots of B U N N I E S. We don't say that word around Sami, so the code word is B. We also saw lots of S Q U I R R E L S. That's another word that's taboo, so our second code is SQ. Laila was speaking the special code for the rest of the day. During our first walk with Sami, somehow she didn't see any of those critters, but when she does, the Beagle howl will be loud and clear.
Today, after Grandpa fixes the requested pancakes, we're off to Balboa Park to see what new adventures we can discover.
When we traveled with our grandson who LOVED to travel but ultimately that phrase always came way too soon. We came up with something that worked well with him. We had him tell us how much further we had to go by watching the signs for any information on where we were going. If there was a place we planned to stop first, we would use that city for mileage signage.
ReplyDeleteWe started this with him at around 2 years old and continued until he was 6. Not only did it help with his reading, but it kept him occupied because he was telling us how long we had.
We also played the alphabet game, beginning with A through Z finding a word printed out on signs for each letter in sequence. Whoever found the most would get a prize.
Good luck and have fun, these days are precious!