San Diego, Coronado, Mission Viego (& Laguna)

So we landed safely yesterday after our flight got delayed an hour due to turtles crossing over the runway at JFK (go figure?!?) and trekked our ridiculously heavy bags and boarded the shuttle to Fox Rental Car. To our surprise, it was actually clean, service was prompt, and we got a free upgrade to a....Chrysler 300!! Oh you are so jealous!! (I'll attach pictures later when I figure out how). We have been playing around with names for it, and I've decided to go with "pimp mobile"... and funny enough we saw one pass us by on the highway with tinted out windows and like 17 inch rims! Hahaha...riding in style!!

Moving right along...once we got the pimp mobile, we plugged in Jay's address and made our way straight to Pacific Beach, stopping in a Burger King to change into our bathing suits where we had to pay $0.25 to use it. Got our suits on and headed straight to Lahaina's...a cute bar on the boardwalk. We started off with some margarhita's and fish tacos, but then moved on to Pacifico's. We soaked up the sun, sipped on our drinks, and made many new friends, 2 of the guys being from Sweden- Carl and Daniel. We also encountered Jim and Sam...Jim a sous chef in San Diego who is hoping to move to Boston, who was bald, tattooed, and gave me my first business card of the trip. Ha! Jay and his fiancee Brooke met up with us and we grabbed a bite with them and headed back to their apartment to watch the fireworks being set off from Sea World. Shout out to Jay and Brooke....thanks so much for your hospitality!!!

Unfortunately Jay and Brooke were heading to the east coast this morning, so we dropped them off at the airport and took a driving tour of downtown San Diego before we headed out to Coronado to spend the day soaking up the sun on the beach. We enter Coronado and unfortunately "beach" is not a destination Susie's GPS understands, so we followed a main road hoping to stumble upon one. As we're cruising we see a toll booth ahead. Next thing we know there's a sign that says "Proper ID required". Dumbfounded, we continue to proceed towards the security station ahead of us. Little did we know that we were at the entrance to the Naval base, and military ID was required to proceed! We u-turned out of there and finally headed in the right direction and found ourselves a convenient public parking spot right next to the beach. We treated ourselves to a divine breakfast buffet at the Hotel del Coronado, and spent the rest of the day on the beach, getting sunburnt due to the lack of skill we both have with spray-on sunscreen. My shins, knees and thighs are streaked with red, as Susie's hips are close to purple. :(

After the beach, we hopped on Interstate 5 and trekked up to Andy and Shannon's house in Mission Viego. We got to meet the adorable Gus-- their golden retriever-- and play with him in the pool for a bit. (Although he got a bit fiesty during a game of catch and swam on top of me, clawing my chest and practically pulling off my bathing suit! I have marks to prove it! Haha) After our fun-time in the pool, we decided to grab burritos for dinner and go to Laguna Beach to eat them and watch the sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous!! The waves were crashing up on the rocks, the sun slowly setting in the distance. Surreal! On our way home we stopped for frozen yogurt and brought it back to their house, eating it while relaxing in their "pool that got really hot". A perfect end to a perfect day!! Thank you to Andy and Shannon (and Gus)!!!

Oh but before I finally finish this novel, I have to add that as we were leaving the frozen yogurt shop and walking to our pimp mobile, we saw this 12 year old boy on his bike totally checking the car out! Hahahahaha

Tomorrow we are off to LA...going for a ride along Rodeo Drive, hitting up 90210, Santa Monica, and heading into Hollywood. We'll be in touch if there are any celebrity sitings and to update you with the tons of stories I'm sure we're bound to have! Hope you are all doing well...signing out from sunny So-Cal!

~Andrea :)