San Diego 2

Last night we went out with Jean and had an adult night – his kids were going with their mother and she offered to take Morgane, too. They went to Chuck E. Cheese, so Morgane was happy.

The three of us ate some good Thai food. The water they brought us to drink was flavoured with lemon, mint and cucumber! Then we went downtown and saw a movie. Downtown was full of bars and clubs and there were lots of people out drinking. We drove past one club that had a toy bucking bronco that people could ride. We watched Up in the Air which was good, but not as good as Juno or Thank You For Smoking, the director’s previous films.

Today we slept in and then had the exciting job of putting our new stickers on the van! We ordered them from our Buses by the Bridge neighbour, Scott, of Pinsville in Las Vegas and they came in the mail very quickly. I felt strange putting something on our van, but Ghis seemed happy about it.  I still can’t believe that Ghis consented to us putting something pink up.

It was a bit of a learning curve applying the stickers, but with Jean’s help, it turned out fine.

Then we took the van for a spin and had breakfast in Encinitas. We sat on the sunny patio and watched the many bikes go by.

After picking up the kids, we went hiking at Torrey Pines Park. Unfortunately, we lost Ghis early on – he never noticed us coming out of the washrooms and we looked but didn’t see him sitting and waiting.

The rest of us walked the road to the top of the hill and got to see a roadrunner outside the visitor’s centre. Then we followed a trail to a viewpoint and from there, we descended to the beach.

Halfway down, Jean pointed out a couple of dolphins swimming in the waves.

There were caves and interesting indents in the colourful sandstone. At the beach, the waves came up all the way and threatened to soak our feet.

Since it was easier to walk along the beach than to walk back up the hill and down the other side, we took off our shoes and alternated sprinting over the sand with shuffling along a dry ledge.

Unfortunately, I stuck Morgane’s shoes on the back of my pack where there is some stretchy cord. Young Gabriel noticed when the second shoe fell off, but we never found the first shoe and the waves were so high it was probably washed away.

Morgane loved the giant kelp that was washed up on the beach. She even tied one around her waist and walked along, dragging it behind her.

We saw a lot of erosion that had happened during the rains of the last few days – a lot of sandstone had been washed away and sometimes the steps were missing except for the bare skeleton of the staircase.

Back at home, everyone was tired. We had a BBQ, watched a movie, and soon we will all be asleep.