Back to San Diego
Penn and Dawn in San Diego
Friday February 1st 2013 – Ensenada
It’s a new month and here we are, still stuck in Ensenada waiting for concrete to dry. It’s driving me crazy. Will we ever get done and get out of here?
Dawn is not feeling well. I think it’s a slight touch of the flu. We woke at 6 am today to get ready for our big trip to San Diego. She didn’t feel like getting out of bed.
I gave her the option to stay home and I’d go by myself, when I remembered something. I’m in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when she crawls in to tell me that she really doesn’t want to go.
“Get dressed and get in the car,” I tell her. “I completely forgot that I have your birthday present waiting for you in San Diego. You have to go.”
So we piled in the Queen Mary (Dawn’s GMC Yukon) and headed for the border. It was a nice drive as usual until we got to Tijuana. TJ deserves its reputation as a dirty border town. The long wait at the border is not on tree-lined boulevards. The streets are junky and dirty and columns of vendors and beggars walk between the cars held in captivity in the border crossing lines.
After our usual two-hour wait, we cleared the border and headed for San Diego. Our first stop was at a GMC dealer where we bought a new tail light assembly for the Queen Mary. The QM has not had a working left blinker since Dawn bought the car and we have the time to fix it, so I ordered one.
Next up was meeting her brother, Duane for lunch. He took us to an upscale hamburger place where we dined outside in the warm winter sun. I did finally have to give up and go to the car for a sweatshirt, but really? Dining al fresco in February? What’s to complain about?
After lunch, which Dawn thought was her birthday surprise, Duane went to his car for her present. Duane works for Dell Computers and gets a ridiculous discount.
Dawn has been using an old lap top that her uncle gave her since I knew her. I believe that Noah originally used that lap top on the ark. Anyway, Duane produces a lovely state of the art Dell Inspirion lap top for Dawn, at half price.
She went nutso. She’d never owned a brand new computer before. It’s all shiny and pretty and comes with Windows 8. Duane loaded Microsoft Office on it for her and some security software. She’s off to the races.
But I’m going to skip ahead here. She didn’t get Windows 8. It is so different from Microsoft’s previous operating systems that she was totally lost most of the time. When we’re working on our computers, I can hardly get anything done because every five minutes she gets stuck on something. Keep in mind that I’ve never seen Windows 8 either. We have to figure it out as we go.
She whined and complained about Windows 8 so much that I finally blew up. I told her I was sorry that I bought her a present that brought so much pain into her life.
It’s a new month and here we are, still stuck in Ensenada waiting for concrete to dry. It’s driving me crazy. Will we ever get done and get out of here?
Dawn is not feeling well. I think it’s a slight touch of the flu. We woke at 6 am today to get ready for our big trip to San Diego. She didn’t feel like getting out of bed.
I gave her the option to stay home and I’d go by myself, when I remembered something. I’m in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when she crawls in to tell me that she really doesn’t want to go.
“Get dressed and get in the car,” I tell her. “I completely forgot that I have your birthday present waiting for you in San Diego. You have to go.”
So we piled in the Queen Mary (Dawn’s GMC Yukon) and headed for the border. It was a nice drive as usual until we got to Tijuana. TJ deserves its reputation as a dirty border town. The long wait at the border is not on tree-lined boulevards. The streets are junky and dirty and columns of vendors and beggars walk between the cars held in captivity in the border crossing lines.
After our usual two-hour wait, we cleared the border and headed for San Diego. Our first stop was at a GMC dealer where we bought a new tail light assembly for the Queen Mary. The QM has not had a working left blinker since Dawn bought the car and we have the time to fix it, so I ordered one.
Next up was meeting her brother, Duane for lunch. He took us to an upscale hamburger place where we dined outside in the warm winter sun. I did finally have to give up and go to the car for a sweatshirt, but really? Dining al fresco in February? What’s to complain about?
After lunch, which Dawn thought was her birthday surprise, Duane went to his car for her present. Duane works for Dell Computers and gets a ridiculous discount.
Dawn has been using an old lap top that her uncle gave her since I knew her. I believe that Noah originally used that lap top on the ark. Anyway, Duane produces a lovely state of the art Dell Inspirion lap top for Dawn, at half price.
She went nutso. She’d never owned a brand new computer before. It’s all shiny and pretty and comes with Windows 8. Duane loaded Microsoft Office on it for her and some security software. She’s off to the races.
But I’m going to skip ahead here. She didn’t get Windows 8. It is so different from Microsoft’s previous operating systems that she was totally lost most of the time. When we’re working on our computers, I can hardly get anything done because every five minutes she gets stuck on something. Keep in mind that I’ve never seen Windows 8 either. We have to figure it out as we go.
She whined and complained about Windows 8 so much that I finally blew up. I told her I was sorry that I bought her a present that brought so much pain into her life.
Dawn's tool box
After a protracted discussion about the state of the world, I finally went to bed. She proceeded to Google Windows 8 and found some tutorials. It was amazing how much better the lap top was the next day.
Now, back to San Diego. We dropped off the dinghy to be repaired, picked up the repaired propeller and hit the marine stores. It was getting late in the day and we were tired.
In our original plan, we were going to stop at the Mexican Consulate to get the paper work on our visas started. Our day was too full and the visa office closes at 11 am. We didn’t have all of the forms and paperwork that we needed. I was just going to get information on how to proceed. It didn’t happen. Reluctantly, we gave up on trying to make it there on time.
Dawn has some old friends visiting San Diego this weekend. She spent several days trying to arrange a time to get together. She talked her brother into putting his speed boat in the water and taking us all out for a day on the Bay. Now she feels so poorly that she doesn’t want to go.
She called her friends and they suggested we meet for a drink around 5 pm. Dawn couldn’t say no, but just wanted to go home and go to bed. Finally she called them and said she was so sick she couldn’t make it. It broke her heart not to be able to see them.
Our last stop was at Costco. I wanted to get shredded cheddar cheese and Italian sausage, neither of which we can get in Mexico. I brought our cooler with us, so we proceeded to fill it up with other unobtainable items, some of which were legal and some were not.
Did you know that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which are readily available in Mexico are made with a different formula down here? I don’t know why, but the PB Cups taste totally different in Mexico. After trying a couple, I gave up on them. They’re not special anymore, just candy.
So, at Costco Dawn found a big box of them to take home with us. If I ration them carefully, they’ll last me a couple of months.
Popcorn too. We don’t have a microwave on the boat so we got in the habit of buying a big jar of old fashioned pop corn and popping it in a pan on the stove. You know what? It really is better that way.
In Mexico, all we’ve been able to find is microwave popcorn. It’s called palmitas de maiz here. I think it’s kind of a cute name.
Then there were the tools. Most of my tools were ruined in the flood. My socket set is all rusted up and I threw away all of my drill bits. Costco had both in reasonably priced kits so I picked them up. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to work with nice clean tools after struggling with rust encrusted ones.
If we got inspected at the border, they would confiscate all the meat. But we’ve driven over the border several times now and they haven’t once even asked us a question. I took my chances and it paid off. We slipped through the border unnoticed.
We got home after 10 pm, tired and hungry and glad to be home. After some warmed up spaghetti, we rolled into bed, satisfied that we had accomplished a lot on our trip.
Tomorrow I can get back to the electrical work on the boat. It is not fun, but it is necessary and I will feel more energized when it’s all done.
Now, back to San Diego. We dropped off the dinghy to be repaired, picked up the repaired propeller and hit the marine stores. It was getting late in the day and we were tired.
In our original plan, we were going to stop at the Mexican Consulate to get the paper work on our visas started. Our day was too full and the visa office closes at 11 am. We didn’t have all of the forms and paperwork that we needed. I was just going to get information on how to proceed. It didn’t happen. Reluctantly, we gave up on trying to make it there on time.
Dawn has some old friends visiting San Diego this weekend. She spent several days trying to arrange a time to get together. She talked her brother into putting his speed boat in the water and taking us all out for a day on the Bay. Now she feels so poorly that she doesn’t want to go.
She called her friends and they suggested we meet for a drink around 5 pm. Dawn couldn’t say no, but just wanted to go home and go to bed. Finally she called them and said she was so sick she couldn’t make it. It broke her heart not to be able to see them.
Our last stop was at Costco. I wanted to get shredded cheddar cheese and Italian sausage, neither of which we can get in Mexico. I brought our cooler with us, so we proceeded to fill it up with other unobtainable items, some of which were legal and some were not.
Did you know that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which are readily available in Mexico are made with a different formula down here? I don’t know why, but the PB Cups taste totally different in Mexico. After trying a couple, I gave up on them. They’re not special anymore, just candy.
So, at Costco Dawn found a big box of them to take home with us. If I ration them carefully, they’ll last me a couple of months.
Popcorn too. We don’t have a microwave on the boat so we got in the habit of buying a big jar of old fashioned pop corn and popping it in a pan on the stove. You know what? It really is better that way.
In Mexico, all we’ve been able to find is microwave popcorn. It’s called palmitas de maiz here. I think it’s kind of a cute name.
Then there were the tools. Most of my tools were ruined in the flood. My socket set is all rusted up and I threw away all of my drill bits. Costco had both in reasonably priced kits so I picked them up. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to work with nice clean tools after struggling with rust encrusted ones.
If we got inspected at the border, they would confiscate all the meat. But we’ve driven over the border several times now and they haven’t once even asked us a question. I took my chances and it paid off. We slipped through the border unnoticed.
We got home after 10 pm, tired and hungry and glad to be home. After some warmed up spaghetti, we rolled into bed, satisfied that we had accomplished a lot on our trip.
Tomorrow I can get back to the electrical work on the boat. It is not fun, but it is necessary and I will feel more energized when it’s all done.