San Diego, California 16-20 June 2007

On the 16th of June we casually made our way towards our car and our trip southward to San Diego. It's just a straight shot down I-5, right? That's what the unsuspecting victims such as ourselves thought!
Anyway, the day we left the hot weather started to give, pushed out by the much-more-typical Bay Area fog („sunny California„ is an fallacious ideal that only the tourists believe in!). Which of course cleared up about 30 minutes into our journey. I had rationally budgeted about 6 hours to LA and another one hour from there to SD. The scorching hot weather all the way down through the Central Valley did not make for pleasant driving, but at last we made it to LA. And spent the next two hours crawling through Saturday afternoon rush hour traffic for no apparent reason. From there it was another hour and a half to San Diego, then another 20 minutes eastward into the desert and our destination at Santee.
My very dear friend Cathérine Pujol-Baxley, whom I met while we were at Berkeley, moved to San Diego about six years ago, got married to Dave Baxley, and had little Gabrielle. There house in Santee is absolutely beautiful, and thankfully they were able to take us in on very short notice (typical Jessica!).
We can't boast that we managed to do much or find adventure while we were in town, mainly because I was waiting for my passport with NZ work visa to be processed and returned to me via express courier. No passport, no trip to NZ on the 20th! We did manage a quick trip to the beach and a nice swim in the ocean, which is always deliciously refreshing.

Gabrielle was fiercely protective of her mother, but was starting to warm up to us by the time we left.

Dave, as always, came forward as the very gracious host, sharing with us his best food and his very good wines. I might also add that Dave's passion for good wine has resulted in the removal of their dishwasher to make room for a wine cooler under the kitchen countertop. Passions must be properly nursed!

The cool desert evenings were perfect for wine and grillings out on the patio by the pool. I think the word here to use is ´decadent`.

Cheers for Grillmaster Dave!

Better than the Ritz, eh?

And of course I had no complaints.

Turned out that the hardest part of the day was getting Gabrielle calmed down, bathed and into bed. Of which Dave was not much help, you see :-)

Pardon the grainy pic, yours truly isn't a skilled photographer, particuarly when it comes to tricky inside flash pics at night. I was proud enough that I managed to snap the photos (hey, at least the composition shows potential), but Stein Magne, upon closer inspection, only shook his head and walked away. Yeah, yeah...

It had been about 5 years since I had seen Cathérine and Dave, and the first time I'd met Gabrielle. I wish we would have had more time to spend with them and exploring the area (read: ocean). Thanks for everything, guys, it was so good to see you again. Next time the wine is on us!