Great Plans Laid To Waste and Trippin to The Coast

I had some great plans and one of them was to blog daily. The last time I posted was almost a year ago and it was on the trip Carrie and I took to expose her to as many states as possible.
We were on Day 2 which had us arriving in Casa Grande Arizona. It was Friday and we decided to stay with my sister in law through the weekend and escape the weekend motel rates on the coast. We would eventually leave early Monday morning for San Diego.
 We rolled through El Paso, stopping to drive up to UTEP for the view across the Rio Grande. The housing situation appears to have improved since the years past from the last time I was on this site. The tar paper shacks with tin roofs had changed to wooden structures scattered on the hill side terraced down from one level to another. The heat hadn't changed at all. 111 degrees recorded making the exterior of the car impossible to touch. We took a few pictures of Carrie with Mexico across the river in the background, and moved on. We rolled along to Tucson and finally to Casa Grande.

Family appeared to visit bringing along Kentucky Fried Chicken and all the fixins. Saturday we lazed around town and headed later to Chandler, Arizona for lunch. We would later appreciate this down time as the rest of the trip found us on the move exploring new places and old.
Monday morning as planned we headed to San Diego. Through Hotels.com we reserved a room in the hotel circle. The hotel circle, if you are not familiar with San Diego, is an area that has most of the major hotels close to most of the attractions of San Diego. We could have walked to Old Town had we known we were so close. We checked in to the hotel for seventy dollars a night. The room was clean, the pool was clean and the jacuzzi was awesomely warm and the jets powerful we found late that afternoon. This was a hotel frequented by the college crowd but it was quiet and safe and in the right price range.  As soon as we unpacked  we headed for Old Town. First stop was a wonderful Mexican food restaurant. I had a margarita; Carrie didn't. Later we strolled the streets looking in the shops for souvenirs for Carrie's friends.

The pool and the jacuzzi finished off this day in San Diego. The next morning we headed for the beach. This part of California has a rough rocky beach. The seals were sunning themselves on the ledge and the water was frigid. Later in the day we went to Balboa Park where we spend the rest of the afternoon. We parked in the parking lot and took the tram into the park. I love spending time in Balboa Park. The museum is a must see and the artists that have their oil paintings, the pottery places and the jewelry shops are quaint and afford an afternoon of wandering from place to place. The artists are happy to explain their craft. Again to the jacuzzi in the late afternoon and tomorrow would we would be on our way to L.A.
Freeway driving was an experience in it's own.
I'm going to finish the blogging on this trip in the hopes that someday Carrie will look back on this; read and reminisce.