The Problem with Road Trips...

The problem with road trips is the food. Driving along deserted interstate 8 West on the way to San Diego, I felt a humbly rumbly in my tumbly. Not to mention the gas meter shows less than a quarter of a tank left (and after too many hours of overexposure to the scorching Arizona sun we are 3/4 empty, not 1/4 full). We're at least halfway to our Pacific beach destination, and neither of us wants to stop because hours feel like years when you're staring at sand dunes and splattering bugs on the windshield. Good thing we don't really have a choice.

Finding a gas station on this lonely excuse for a highway is like finding an armadillo on the streets of New York. Lucky for us, the desert has opened up into something spectacular, something amazing, something we haven't seen in over three hours... a Chevron station! Not only could we fill the little red's gas tank for thirty dollars, we could also stock up on delicious snacks. I choose a small bag of Smartfood and a bottle of water after staring at the Doritos, Chex Mix, Sobe drinks, and gummy Lifesavers, all of which are delicious, but have too many unnecessary calories. It wasn't even 6:00 pm, and we had dinner reservations for later that night, but we didn't want to cancel them and stop for a real meal. Even if we did, we would not have been able to find anything besides Mama's Authentic Mexican Cafe where no one could even speak English. So Chevron Gourmet it was. The man in my life chooses a large can of Red Bull, a bottle of Coke, a big bag of jerky, two different types of fruity candy, and a Twix bar. All I could think of was how glad I was to not be paying for this horrific vat of junk, and how ridiculous the sugar rush/crash would be.

At least we had each other. It was his bobbling artificially sweetened head and my inability to decline a good wad of high fructose corn syrup that kept us awake for the remainder of our journey.

Three hours later we were entering downtown San Diego with sugar-hangovers strong enough to punch through a 50 foot mountain of sand, but we made it to our fabulous Best Western in northern San Diego and practically crashed against the pillows. That's what we get for having no money and forgetting to pack snacks.

The flamingos and gorillas the next day made all the traveling worth it. As did the thirty-minute conversation with a cop on a bike. And I'm not talking about a motor bike, I'm talking about an actual road bike. I've seen this of course, but it's really hard to take those guys seriously, especially when they are stopping people for smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk next to the beach. You could drink alcohol in the ocean (as long as it was in cans not glass bottles) but you couldn't smoke a cig on the boardwalk. Not that I wanted to see or smell anyone smoking, but it just didn't make much sense. After a few margaritas and Adios Mothaf*ckas (a blue or sometimes green cheap alcohol infused drink they apparently only serve on the western side of the U.S.) on the beach, it was time to get the car from the $5 an hour parking lot down the street. We were paying so much to park the car that we couldn't afford to order a better quality alcohol or a less fried version of seafood for dinner.

After a night of tasting the pacific beaches, I was up with the roosters in the morning, if San Diego had roosters. Really it was the sounds of suitcase wheels on the bumpy pavement outside our hotel window that sounded like hurricane Bob that woke me. I wanted to get out of the room before the obnoxious cleaning ladies came by and pounded on room 318 like their life depended on it, so I rolled the boy out from under the covers, packed up our junk, and drove little red down I-5 to Mission Beach. It was relatively quiet when we got there, and the surfers were everywhere even though I found the waves to be less than impressive. I guess anyone will have their surfing time and eat it too, at least until 11:00 am when they have to move to the other side of the checkered flag.

The highlight of the day, besides the salad from 7-11 (even more fabulous road trip food), was the cutest little kid in a yellow and black jump suit. His brilliant blue eyes were bigger and more vibrant than anything I've ever seen and he just could not stop bouncing and smiling! His little round face made the early wake up call worth it.

Even though we got pulled over for blowing an invisible stop sign, ended up in Mexico because I took the wrong highway out of San Diego, and had to eat Taco Bell for dinner, the road trip to San Diego was enlightening and culturally stimulating for everyone, even Freddy, who had never been out of the country before.

~j