Our last day of vacation was mostly spent driving home on back highways and even historic route 99. The drive was broken up by a few stops. We started it by looking around Slab City and exploring their golf course. We also walked around and admired Salvation Mountain. If you want to know more about it visit their official website. http://www.slab-city.com/
It is a fascinating city, basically made up of people living a more free kind of lifestyle. I don't really know how to describe it all, so just look at the website, it is interesting. Salvation Mountain is pretty cool too, this guy spent a long, long time creating this art work.
After this, our next stop was the Salton Sea. Also an interesting place with a lot of history. It reminded me of the Great Salt Lake but a little less salty and smelly.
After this we drove for a little ways and enjoyed the agricultural. A museum for General Patton caught Dave's eye and so we made a little detour. Interesting man.
Our last day was still good, a little long of a drive home, but Dave and I enjoyed being together. We had such a fun vacation and time in San Diego and everywhere in-between.
We started our last day in San Diego with a walk on the beach. It was quite lovely and a little sad to leave the water.
We then headed to church and then to the Mormon Battalion Site. It is located in the old part of San Diego. We loved this lds church site. It was so fun and interactive. I learned a ton about the men and women who served the USA in this capacity. So cool!
It was such a fun time wandering around Old Town San Diego. It had a fun vibe and was full of historic sites and shops.
We then drove to Slab City. The drive took about 3 hours and the drive was really interesting and beautiful. It was crazy to think how close we were driving to Mexico. Day 3 was a great day and it was nice to drive a different way and stop somewhere new on the way home. We stayed in Slab City for the night and our host Ray was interesting to talk to and learn about his lifestyle and the area. More about that on Day 4.
Our first and only full day in San Diego, started with a walk on the beach and then pancakes at the hostel. We opted to take the bus instead of suffering the stress of driving. Throughout the day we did have a few mishaps on finding the right bus to take on a weekend route, but I really enjoyed riding the bus. Our fellow bus riders were really sweet and seemed to sense that we were newbies. A sweet Italian lady, who used to be a tour guide, offered advice on how to get to the zoo. I am still not sure how she knew that was where we were going. Also a nice muslim man made sure I knew how and where to pull the wire to let the bus know to stop. I thought he was just staring at me, but it turns out he was just being extra nice to the out of towners and making sure we didn't miss our stop. Which is the hardest part about the bus ride, knowing when to pull to get off. We also met a lot of other nice bus drivers and interesting individuals.
Our day included:
The ZOO - world famous San Diego Zoo, hot, fun, lots of animals, the double decker tour bus was awesome, a sweet polar bear playing with a barrel, baby giraffes, long talk with a zoo volunteer in a shady alcove
Balboa Park - BIG, lots of people enjoying Saturday and the sun, beautiful fountains and old buildings, plants everywhere, Dave became part of the fun by hula hoping with a humanist guy, So Fun
Little Italy - Found a yummy restaurant, nice fun and clean vibe area of town, beautiful neighborhood, had the realization how much money you can get for bottles and cans in CA
Maritime Museum - So Cool, walking around on ships actually in the water, actual ships and submarines, so educational, one of my favorite museum I have ever been too, Love that Dave knew about this and we went
Beach - Dave played in the water, while I watched and cheered him on.
And now the pictures -
Dave and I started out the trip to San Diego in high spirits. We ended up stopping at a garage sale on the way out of town and getting some fun stuff at great prices. We then really started the long 6 hour drive, which turned into more like an 8 hour drive.
But we broke it up with a stop to visit some friendly aliens. Odd little shop in the middle of no-where, but they did a great job having huge billboards for miles advertising their alien jerky. The drive was quite beautiful despite the stop and go traffic at times. I loved seeing all the communities created on such green hills the closer we got to the coast.
With a big sigh of relief, we finally made it to our hostel, the banana bungalow, which is located right on boardwalk on Mission Beach. So fun to be steps away from sand and to hear the waves at night. We ended up staying in a shared dormitory room with 4 sets of bunk beds and one shared bathroom. The price was right, which helped to alleviate the pain of listening to drunken revelry all night long.
After getting situated in our room. We headed for a walk and dinner. We went to Joe's Crab Shack to eat yummy sea food and then took a beautiful walk on the beach. It was so lovely to not be in the car and to be able to feel the sand in our toes. The beach is a very clean one and is located in a really fun spot. It was very rejuvenating begin and end each vacation day with a walk on the beach and sometimes a dip in the sea.
