On the beach in Mission Bay, San Diego, we had supper here and it was a beautiful sunset.

The carousel at San Diego Wild Animal Park



Well, here we are on the way to San Franciso. Is anybody else tempted to spell “Francisco with two s’s and one c? Mapquest keeps getting after me for spelling it wrong. We’re in the van traveling at about 75mph and I’m blogging while we drive to pass the time. We’ve just come from Ojai, spent the night at the Nofry’s again last night. Brooke, your parents are unbelievably hospitable! We’ve come through Santa Barbara on the 101 Freeway and have passed through San Luis Obispo (“I would have flown but I can’t stand planes” for anyone who knows the old Mark Heard song), and just got back in the car after stopping at Carl’s Jr (again) in King City. Sorry Grant, we haven’t made it to an In and Out burger yet, they just haven’t been around when we’ve been hungry but we intend to make it to at least one before we’re home. I sure like this 101 better than the I5 Two lanes most of the way and not nearly as many trucks. Its still pretty dry through the area we’re in now (between Salinas and King City) but not as bad as the I5 through Kettleman City. Bruce Nofrey said they haven’t had rain since March or something like that so this whole area is in a pretty extreme drought. I really liked Pismo Beach as we drove through today, I think I could spend some time there. Our drive back from San Diego was kind of hectic through LA. There was a semi flipped over on the 405 near LAX and the masses of cars backed up was unbelievable. Actually on the way down, we had a guy pass us at what must have been 90 to 100 mph weaving through 6 lanes of traffic and then lose control and do a 360 on the I5 in mid Saturday afternoon traffic. By some miracle, he was able to regain control and keep going without anybody hitting him. We couldn’t believe it! He was only a couple of lanes over and about 100 feet away. So, anyways, I’m somewhat glad to be out of Southern California traffic, that’s for sure.

This morning, as we left Bruce and Linda’s, there was ash floating all over the place. The Santa Barbara fire is apparently huge and heading towards Ventura county (where Ojai is). As we went through Santa Barbara area, you could not even see the sky the smoke was so heavy.

What else can I tell you? Since I last wrote, we spent another day at Sea World. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but one of the kids favorite areas was the bat ray (sting ray) interaction. They cut all the stingers off these wrays and then let you pet them in a pool (theres a whole bunch of them). Its so funny the way they seem to love to be touched and swim up to you for it. Cath had one chomp down on her hand as she was touching it.

We then went to San Diego Wild Animal Park yesterday. It was stinkin hot (100 degrees farenheit) and more inland than the other attractions. It was more of stuff we’d already seen so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there. It was a bit disappointing as you could only see one tiger at a distance and a few lions. There was some other stuff but it was enough just to get the kids to walk around the once and we ended up only spending about 3 hours there in total.

Well that’s all for now. Hope everyone’s doing well




In the park in Mission Bay San Diego


.Old Town Mexican Cafe in Old Town San Diego


Some quiesy (is that how you spell that?) weirdo at the tidal pools at Sea World