CA - Day One

Dylan and I arrived in Sunny San Diego, California on June 5th eager to see Rory!

He met us at baggage claim with a rose for me and tons of hugs for both Dylan and I.

Rory had already picked up the rental car and checked in at the hotel where he left me a welcome basket full of goodies.

What a man!

The airport was right across from the harbor area and it was gorgeous! I was greeted with blue skies, sun and palm trees. We grabbed some dinner or late night snack for me whatever you want to call it:) Then we went back to our room at Residence Inn. It was way passed Dylan's bed time and after our rough plane trip out there I was more than ready to put him to bed.


DAY ONE...
was an easy one for us. We took our time getting up and around then headed over to Coronado Island. At the Naval Station, we did some grocery shopping and saw the good ole' GW. For lunch we headed to a local place in Imperial Beach. We had heard from someone who lived there it was safe and tasty.
Los Panchos was the name of the establishment (though establishment may be a little too nice sounding) Believe me, you had to be a local or know a local to stop there. It was delicious authentic Mexican fare but the restaurant was shady looking. We got Mexican Aqua to go with our lunches. Yes, that could be scary but since it wasn't truly aqua we were safe. Rory got Aqua Horchata, a traditional rich and creamy drink made with rice milk and cinnamon and I got the Aqua Guava or Guayaba. Both were delicious though Rory's was very sweet more like a dessert drink in my opinion.
After enjoying our lunch we walked out onto the pier. The above picture is a shot looking back at Imperial Beach the mountains in the back ground are a part of Mexico.
Look that those two in their shades:)
Above you can see (barely) one of the helicopters that was guarding our border. Two helicopters would fly in wide circles over what we deduced was our border. In the picture below, Dylan and I are standing in front of the sign for the Tijuana Refuge. Farther behind us is Tijuana - no we did not go. Uncle Sam told Rory no and we heard that it wasn't much of a family area. Also, lately there had been some Mafia hits on tourists. Multiple reasons to stay on U.S. soil

We did drive to the border - we had a blast hoping there was a turn around and wondering if we should have exited at the last exit in the US!
Check out all the cameras
- I think no matter what, you are going to be on some camera. They seem to catch every angle (driving angle that is)
Yea! there was a u-turn to the USA.
We paused at the end of the road: one because Dear Rory was letting his wife take her million pictures and two because we weren't sure how to merge in with the entering US traffic. I guess we were paused too long because a border patrol man came out and waved us on. Rory and I were cracking up at this point. I think the Border Patrol was trying hard not to laugh at us since he had one of those "oh you crazy tourists" looks on his face and the side of his mouth turned up though he was trying to look serious.
OK this next picture is one that I saved from the Internet.
I had turned the camera off to save the batteries after we did our Mexican Border u-turn so I didn't get my own picture.
Not a mile down the road we saw this sign NO LIE on the side of the highway. Rory and I died laughing.

Some of you may remember that Carlos Mencia did an episode about this sign - it is real!