Full of energy (not!) we got up at 5:30am, threw our overnight bags in the car, and drove South on I-15 towards San Diego. The idea was to beat the sun up (which we didn’t quite manage to do) and leave the Vegas valley before it got hot (which we succeeded in doing).

We stopped for breakfast at Barstow at Chrissy’s Cafe, which L and I remembered stopping at for dinner a year or so ago back when we drove our car from San Francisco, full of house contents, and a desire to get to our new house in Las Vegas.

The pancakes were not quite as good as I remembered them.

There was not much to see on the way South, just desert, and road works, and minor towns.

We took a pit stop in a town called Perris, and I know we then nulled out the benefit of the pit stop by walking back to the car via Starbucks and getting coffee.

We drove into the outskirts of San Diego at about 12:00, but before arriving at Marshall & Judy’s place we had a very important stop to make: The Carvin guitar factory and showroom. Derek and Teresa and Lisa were very patient while I wandered about trying out different guitars and looking at all the other items in the showroom. Yum.

I can’t remember where we stopped for lunch – I think it was a Hawaian-themed burger joint up the road from Carvin.

We pulled in to Judy and Marshall’s driveway at about 1:30pm, and pretty much flopped for the rest of the day. Some of us went swimming, some of us took naps… I seem to remember a game of Poker that broke out late afternoon and continued until the sun went down.

I was pretty tired after all the driving, and the rest of the evening is a bit of a blur… I remember meeting Anna’s brother Arthur (well, for the second time anyway) and a fantastic dinner arranged by Judy, we ate around the table… at some point we begged tiredness and fell asleep relatively quickly in the very comfortable guest room.