We had a busy, busy day yesterday. Started out with a visit to the ocean, where Holly walked her dogs, and then a visit to the mission, which may be our favourite breakfast place in town. Then we came back to the house and helped Holly pack for her trip home for the holidays, which basically involved chatting with her while she whittled down to a single bag of clothes. Then we loaded into separate cars and headed east, into the mountains and the desert, stopping to see Holly's old house en route.
I'd never really seen the desert before, so the day was conceived to see some of the nature outside of San Diego's urban sprawl. The mountains were amazing, running up to 4200 feet, and then we dropped almost straight down into the desert proper. When we pulled off the highway in the desert onto an empty highway containing only a gas station and scrub, it felt an awful lot like we had suddenly entered any bad television movie ever made, probably something with Chuck Norris. We bid adieu to Holly, who continued on her way to Arizona, and we turned around. The drive back was possibly more beautiful than the drive out, as the sunset kept teasing us with beautiful pink skies seen through mountain peaks.
We stopped off at the Viejas casino and outlet mall to get some jeans for Sasha. The experience of going to a Gap on a reservation, across from a casino, was something a little odd. But there you are. We bought significantly more than a pair of jeans, and got back on the road.
Heading west from there, we came to a place on the highway where one of the lanes had been closed, and traffic backed up. We had spotted this area earlier in the day, and knew it was some sort of checkpoint. As we rolled up to the place where a million lights were pointed at the road, and a man in uniform was peering intently into each car, waving most on, sending some off. We rolled up and rolled down our window. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I waited for the uniformed man to speak. He asked 'how you folks doin'?' and waved us through. I never spoke, nor showed any documents. It had been a checkpoint for illegals, and was so clearly profiling non-whites that it made our heads spin.
We finished the trip into town, hooked up with Bucky, Holly's friend, and headed out for sushi. By the end of the evening we were pretty well finished. Plans for today may include taking it a bit easy, and certainly involve taking Rufus (Bucky's dog) for a walk, as Holly took Apple, leaving one sad puppy behind.