This afternoon we visited La Jolla, a nice neighborhood just north of Mission Bay, where we are staying. We explored the tide pools. We attempted to visit the sea lions, but it was really crowded, we skipped it. Then we got some food to share at The Taco Stand, a popular fast-food taco shop.
This morning it was back to the beach for more surfing. Just the older kids and I went. Susan took Lucia and Rose to a playground near the RV park.
This afternoon it was back to the beach for another round of playing and surfing.
Today we moved from our RV park in the sticks to Mission Bay, right near the heart of San Diego. It was a quick move and we were ready to get outside to enjoy the lovely day.
Today we had another opportunity to go surfing. The beaches in San Diego are supposed to be some of the best beaches in the US for surfing. There are a couple beginner beaches and we rented some boards and wetsuits and go to it.
Maybe we got to it a little too aggressively. Our first time in the water here we tried to go too far out and we just got hammered by the waves. We decided to head to back to shore and regroup. It was still rough going in the morning, but after lunch we had more success. We decided to start smaller and work our way out to the bigger waves. In the end everyone had fun and we hope to get in one more surf trip while we are here.
This afternoon we went on another hike in the hills around our campground. It was a beautiful day and a fun hike.
This afternoon we visit Cabrillo National Monument, in/on Point Loma, a peninsula that juts out to help form the San Diego Bay. The park featured an old lighthouse, a lot of information, and a nice hike with beautiful views of the city. It was a nice day, but very windy, so we did not stay too long.
Yesterday after we moved across the park we headed to Coronado Island, a small town just outside San Diego, right on the coast. It is a beautiful town with a luxurious old hotel where people were ice skating. It was fun to watch the ice skating, especially because Californians don’t spend much time ice skating.
We spent the afternoon at the beach and then we were planning on watching a boat parade through San Diego Bay, but Lucia was not feeling well so we headed home. Lucia definitely had something going on for a few hours, but by bedtime she was nearly back to herself.
Valley of Fire State Park is about an hour outside of Las Vegas, and it is awesome. It seemed like a combination of Arches National Park and The Wave, outside of Kanab, Utah. We went on a few short hikes: Elephant Rock, Fire Wave, White Domes, and Mouse’s Tank. We all had a fun time exploring and taking in the views.
Disclaimer: Pictures don’t do this place justice, at least not with our phone cameras.
It has been a long 24 hours. I haven’t posted much about our car troubles, but we have had more work than we were planning on. In the past 2 months we have had to fix 2 fuel leaks. Yesterday when we drove in to Vegas I thought we had another. This caused some stress as we are tired of spending money on the car. We talked about it before bed and came up with an action plan for today.
Then the winds came. There were crazy wind gusts last night that were shaking our whole RV and making a lot of noise. Neither Susan nor I slept very well, and I had to get up early for work. I was tired.
I ended up taking the car in to the shop this morning and they located the leak and it turned out to be the transmission gasket. They were able to fix that, change my oil, and replace some worn out parts in the front suspension faster and cheaper than the appointment I have scheduled in San Diego next week, which I can now cancel. Also, they had blazing fast internet, which is awesome.
I pretty much spent the work day there, came home, and then took the kids to the park. There is a park here in Boulder city where bighorn sheep like to hang out. Today there were 50, just grazing on the lawn. It was a cool site and a nice way to wind down after some stressful times.
We had the whole day free today so we decided to trek it to the beach. We love the beach and the weather looked good. We had to drive about 90 minutes to get there from where we are staying. There is a beach that would have been a little closer, but it was impacted by a wildfire so we decided to stay a little farther north.
We went to Doheny Beach which is a state park in Dana Point. It was a beautiful beach with volleyball players, surfers, and a cute cafe right on the beach. It was a fun day.
