Trip out West - San Diego, CA

Day 9; Saturday, July 7th
First day in San Diego

Because we didn’t stay at the Grand Canyon, that placed us a day ahead of schedule.  We tried to reach our contact in San Diego – a childhood friend of Rick’s named Chris Dems – but he wasn’t answering his phone, so we showed up that afternoon to find the poor man sleeping and badly hung over from 4th of July festivities.

Still, Chris was thrilled we were there and was eager to introduce Rick – who he hadn’t seen in years – to all his friends.  Since he really wasn’t prepared for company that day we headed over to another friend who happened to live relatively near by.  This person was Rani – a long-standing friend of Rick’s family and whom I’d met before.  She was in the process of packing to move to (ironically) New York, but the way her schedule was working we were able to stop in and say “hi”; offering both her and us a much needed break from all the hustle and bustle.  We fussed with her ferret and went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner before heading back to Chris’s for a BBQ he invited us to.

We reluctantly bid Rani adieu the next morning to allow her to return to her packing and quandary as to whether or not she was truly going to move east.  Back to Chris’s we went – we had the route between his and her places memorized by now.

Chris was eager to hang out and show us around his haunts.  We spent some time at the white-sand beaches, taking in the ocean and the press of humanity soaking up the summer sun and breeze.

We walked around town and ordered a pizza for dinner.  There were plans to catch a movie but it never really panned out so we said our goodbyes and headed out.

As our next stop was Fallbrook – near San Diego, we didn’t need to travel too far for a hotel that night, but we definitely wanted to be far enough outside of the city for cheaper prices.