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It's Friday, My Favorite Day!!

We packed for our big road trip and headed into Portland for the weekend because Dave had a couple of Blazer games to engineer before we left on Tuesday for our vacation south. The weekend was full of last minute shopping and visiting with friends.

Our daughter, Leslie had signed Paige up for a more challenging soccer team and her first game playing on that team was Sunday. The team is based in Beaverton, which makes a long trip for them for each game, but made it easy for us to drive in from West Linn. Paige made her debut by scoring the first two goals for her new team. They won the first game 2-1 but weren't so lucky the second game. That team was a bunch of bullies plus they were a very good team and Paige's team lost 6-2. They were so aggressive and Paige was even elbowed in the stomach at one point. But Paige did her share of damage too by giving a girl who was on a breakaway a hip check and making her stumble out of bounds. After the game one of the parents on the other team had the nerve to complain to the referee about that. I guess he didn't like his own medicine! Anyway, I always thought girls play soccer a lot more aggressive than boys ever did.

Wouldn't you know it! We woke up on Tuesday the day we were heading out for our road trip and it was snowing lightly. It was time to get out of Dodge while we could. But the roads were clear even going over the Siskiyous and Mt. Shasta but after 10-hours of only stopping for gas and potty breaks, we were glad to arrive at our first layover which was Stockton, California. We had made reservations ahead of time at a motel close to the freeway and requested a "quiet" room away from the traffic noise. Well, it wasn't the traffic noise that kept me awake most of the night; it was a bunch of hoods or gang members who were outside our door talking or whatever they were doing for half the night. I looked out the window a couple of times but was too afraid to open the door to ask them to leave in fear of being shot! To top it off, the bed was lumpy too. We left early the next morning and made our way south on I-5 down the San Joaquin Valley, past groves of orange and olive trees heading closer to LA. We decided since we had just a half a tank of gas left - and we didn't want to arrive in LA on empty - that we would "top" the tank off at Bakersfield. The only station we found near the freeway was selling gas at $5.19 a gallon! We were sure glad we didn't need a full tank. We heard that gas prices were high in California, but that was ridiculous and we were hoping that those prices were not going to be the norm.

We got into LA around 3:00 p.m., just in time for the rush hour traffic but with our handy GPS, we made it through the maze of freeways and stayed on course. It felt good to see the sun (even through the smog). In fact, we had to turn on the air conditioner because it was starting to get warm! Our next motel in Oceanside was a lot more pleasant and after fish and chips down on the wharf overlooking moored sailboats and a full moon, we settled in for a restful night's sleep. This time the motel was both quiet and comfortable and we slept like babies!

The next morning we lazed around Oceanside all morning as we didn't have to be in San Diego until 12:30 to pick up my sister and brother-in-law. We took the scenic view by way of the ocean down to San Diego instead of I-5 and stopped along the way to watch the Pelicans since we had some extra time. We watched Jeanne and Bob's plane land almost on top of us at the San Diego airport. If you have ever flown into San Diego, you know the airport is located right in the center of town and it feels like you are going to hit a skyscraper. Very scary!! We picked them up and got everything loaded in the car and then it was off to Coronado Island. What a beautiful place. We were headed for a home along the marina that is owned by some friends of Bob and Jeanne's. They graciously allowed us to use it for a few days. We found the place with only a couple of wrong turns and were greeted by a couple of very old Beagles - Sweetie who has only 5 teeth and Roxie who barks a lot! Part of the deal staying at this house was taking care of the dogs. I am afraid we will spoil them.

We took a drive around the city of Coronado and had lunch at Lil Piggy's BBQ where we stuffed ourselves with pulled pork sandwiches and baked potatoes because it was way past our lunch time and we were all starving. Then we strolled around the little shopping mall and headed for the grocery store to get a few groceries for breakfast and lunch. It's back to our home away from home to feed the dogs and relax.

Today we have plans to take in the San Diego Zoo and old town San Diego. The weather is splendid 68 degrees but I found out that at home the weather is 68 degrees too. But, they will have rain tomorrow and we have been promised another splendid day with temperatures into the upper 70's. Sorry about that.