Day 3 - Whoa, that was a lot of driving!

Miles driven today = 691
Highest elevation reached = 4,191 ft

Today was the longest day, mileage wise, we'll have on the entire trip. It took us almost 12 hours to get to San Diego. Even after that, it didn't seem too bad. We had a great road day. No rain (I forgot to mention that most of yesterday we were driving in overcast skies and it rained quite a bit in the afternoon; a rarity in West Texas) and plenty of open roads. I keep getting this feeling the traffic jam is coming but we've been blessed so far to have clean sailing.
Jenn, as always, was prepared for another road day. She has more tricks up her sleeve than Pa has stories to tell the grand kids. First, we had another drawing contest. We took the opportunity to educate the kids about the state flowers, birds, and plants of New Mexico and Arizona. They had to draw a picture with the Yucca & whoever depicted it the best won a prize. We have some competitive kids and they went all out. I think they spent about 30 minutes working on their drawings. It was hard to pick a winner so we had to go with a split and each judge (mom & dad) picked a winner then two grand prizes were awarded.
Jennifer then pulled out a bunch of pipe cleaners and the kids made tigers out of them. I have no idea how she figured that one out (see picture below).
We arrived into San Diego and made our way to La Jolla to find our hotel. Somehow, I managed to talk the lady at the front desk into giving us free parking (savings of $17/day) and upgrade us to an Executive Suite. I really wasn't bargaining too hard but I had Tate with me and I think she thought he was cute or something (he really is). Anyway, Jenn gave me a big smile and a thumbs up when she saw the room, which is a lot coming from her. A bad hotel room can make or break the trip for her. So far, I'm doing pretty good in that area. We'll venture around La Jolla tomorrow morning, perhaps to the beach. I think we'll go see my grandma in Point Loma in the afternoon. As a bonus, I found out my uncle John from Seattle is in town so we'll get to see him too. We are really enjoying the comments so keep them coming.

The Yucca - State flower of New Mexico. The dead looking thing at the top is supposed to be the bloom. I think we missed peak season.

Now how do you pick a winner in this contest?? I believe Tate had some assistance.

One more state down. Not much to see in southern New Mexico.

It actually got up to 116 degrees. Dry heat or not, I was worried about the rubber on my tires melting!

Finally, the Golden State.

Bet you didn't think California looked like this! Eastern California is very barren and dry. Occasionally, you'll see a farm or an orchard.

Another Border Patrol checkpoint. I think we passed through 4 or 5 of these today. Again, thankfully none of the lines were long. But, we did have to go into the whole Illegal Alien explanation for the kids. To polish it off, about 10 miles past this checkpoint, there was a Border Patrol truck that had pulled over a car and a apprehended a "suspect". We weren't fast enough with the camera or he would have made the blog!

More pictures of Eastern California. It's starting to get prettier.

After about 40 miles of mountain driving you come into San Diego. Our hotel is pictured here. We sure were glad to get in. Isn't this the cutest group of kids you've ever seen? No, they are not for rent.