Crossing the border at Tecate, MX was interesting, it wasn’t well marked (shocking!) and we noticed “the wall” before we noticed where we were supposed to go in lineup for border crossing.
Trumps wall
US Border patrol only sent agriculture guys on board to check out our food stocks and decided to remove our pre-packed Costco bacon (that originated in the US) and an avocado, but they left behind everything else (fruit, veg, eggs, cheese, other meat). They did comment heavily on Ruby and how great she is! We were proud parents. They had no concerns for what was in the lower bins, didn’t ask us a thing about them. We brought some raw salt back, from the salt mine tour, that we thought for sure the US Border would ask us about, but no!
The drive from Tecate through to San Diego was very beautiful, hilly, curvy. But we were surprised to see a secondary border patrol stop about 20 km down the highway – I guess to make sure you really weren’t hiding a Mexican in your car. But with our Canadian plate, they waved us through!
We landed at Walmart, courtesy of IOverlander APP for 2 nites. This is our best bet in the San Diego area because campsites are few and far between and a minimum of $47US/nite (roughly $65 CA) and that is ridiculous. There were a few other self-contained units in the lot as well, and it was in a relatively nice area and far enough off the shitshow downtown. We planned a touring day down at the marina, as we really wanted to see the USS Midway museum and anything else the area had to offer. Off we went, bright and early at 9 am down to the Marina. If you are ever in the San Diego area and need a good activity to do, DO THIS! You will not be disappointed. It took us just over 4 hours to go through everything, and we were speedy in some areas and we didn’t do all the talking tours. We learned some navy lingo and the history of the ship. They have a very good 15 minute movie about why it is called the Midway with a 3D holograph narrator guy! Even if you not a museum person, you would love this (Except maybe if you were really tall, you might have some clostrophic issues – the ship was put in to service in 1945, when people were generally shorter. But a cool note, is that the ship was put together by women!)
USS Midway
Flight deck
Huey gunship, locked and loaded!
Looking through the passageway.
Practicing for my new job.
Going down the ladders. These were definitely tight and sometimes chlostrophic.
Had enough time in the afternoon to bike through Seaport and checkout a few of the Buskers and take a drive across the famous Coronodo Bridge before we made it back to Ruby.
We figured that 2 nites was the max amount of nites that Walmart would want/allow us to stay (although other IOverlander people had claimed they stayed 5 nites), and we didn’t want to overstay our welcome. On rainy day 2, we headed into the hills to Barona Casino and squatted there for a couple days.
There are a lot of casino’s throughout the US and Canada that allow overnight RV’ers, but you do have to be self contained. Barona is the ONLY casino I have seen in my life that didn’t serve alcohol on the casino floor! WHAT?! Right? we had to drink in the bus and walk over to play some slots and blackjack. Their thing was that you can be 18 to gamble, but not to drink, so if you want a drink, you have to go downstairs to the restaurant/bar after 5pm to get a drink. My favourite thing about this casino (other than we stayed for free) was their certification: “for the loosest slots” ! Who doesn’t love a loose slot?! Crazy. Also, on the morning of day 2, someone decided to shoot a round off their handgun in the parking lot next to us, which was nice. But we stayed for 2 more nites, cause we could and figured what are the chances its going to happen again wile we are here!
There were a couple of hikes in the area, which was great to get out and walk again in the sunshine to try and maintain our Baja tans! There is a lot of rain in the forecast for the upcoming week. Ugh.
El Cajon Mt Trail