Couple of things

1. Driving the rv down to California was an excursion all on it's own!

• I think the girls had a much better time because of the freedom they had during the 20+ hour shifts. Laying around, playing on the computer, watching movies...


• Not having to stop for food or bathroom breaks was a time saver.


• I could get up and walk around or stretch my legs. Unfortunately, Jamie could not.


• Driving the rv over mountain ranges, and watching the gas gauge drop by the second was a little saddening.


• Driving 35-40 mph over said mountain ranges was not a time saver.


• Having all of our stuff in one place was helpful.


• Not having to eat out 3 times a day saved money.


• I don't know how people live in rv's for months at a time. Two teenagers, two adults and all of our stuff was enough to drive me crazy after 3 days.

2. Having pretty much everything go wrong on my parent's car, that we towed, was not the best part of the trip. This includes:

• Interior lights went out due to wiring issues - not easy to drive in the dark like this.


• Exterior lights went out due to wiring issues - this got us pulled over one night.


• The blinkers stopped working due to wiring issues - luckily we didn't get pulled over for this and Jamie still made blinker noises to try to make me happy.


• No defrost - not the best thing with 4 people in a small area in San Fran.


• The windows would roll down very slowly, and then sometimes wouldn't come back up - we found this out when we rolled windows down to try to defrost the car and it was raining sideways.


• The driver's door stopped opening from the inside - I found this out and was not happy.


• The starter went out - Jamie found this out when he drove a few miles up to the grocery store one night and the car wouldn't start. It's very difficult to open the hood without two people, so that made things even harder on him. He was able to call me, right before his cell phone died, to let me know he'd be longer than he thought.


• Spending 4 hours waiting for the starter to get replaced took up part of our morning, but it made us slow down a bit and breath.

3. I was very much looking forward to the San Diego Safari Park camera tour. When we bought the entry tickets, and talked to people, they said it just wasn't worth it. Of course, the website makes it look FAB-u-lous. But, at $90 each we decided not to go. Plus, many of the animals were inside due to the weather and the lions were off site. I did get some good photos, but was a bit disappointed.

4. The San Diego Zoo was nice too, but I don't think it was better than Portland's. Again, many of the animals had been brought in, or were offsite. They were doing some construction and had removed several exhibits. We still had fun and did all we could.

5. The KOA that we stayed at had a heated pool, so that was something we all enjoyed one night. This was our first time staying at a KOA. We've done plenty of camping, but not quite as "high scale" as the KOA parks. I can see why people stay there tho.