San Diego or bust...5.5 hours so it should be a breeze, figuratively speaking since we are literally driving through the desert. It's just sand dunes for miles and miles. We had to go through 3 border controls, which,  I have to admit, concerned me. Lisa's newly acquired savage tan from Arizona should have raised some eyebrows at the checkpoints. Interestingly, we were waived through by Mexican uniformed immigration officers. I wonder if anyone ever checks their papers.  

We made a quick stop in Yuma for lunch. Yes, another left-over picnic. Hey, if you're tired of reading about our leftover lunches, think how we feel. Anyway, we hit the jackpot because we found an actual picnic bench (it's the little things in life). We were on historical Main Street in Yuma which made downtown Michigan City, Indiana look glamorous. We saw about 6 people shopping around in the few stores that were open.  That poor street has Lutes Casino, which doesn't even have gaming anymore, 4 hair salons and a home store with Christmas decorations still in the display window advertising "20% off". Hey Yuma, it's January 16. Christmas is long past and  if you plan on moving your merchandise,  you probably need to mark it down to about 70% off. However, I would steer clear of the signage company that made that indoor mall sign. 

San Diego was 77 degrees and beautiful when we pulled in. Our host is Tommy McQuinn and we met him last year at a dinner party I hosted. He was a guest of one of my friends and as we were planning this trip, we were trying to figure out if we knew anybody in San Diego we could stay with. Then we remembered Tommy and the theme of the party soon turned into the dinner party I hosted "in his honor". One must be crafty when looking for free lodging with people you barely know. Tommy fell into the trap and is now sleeping on the couch for 2 nights. Had I known it would be this easy I would have hosted dinner parties for out-of-towners every weekend last year.

Tommy's name is deceiving as it sounds like he's a member of the Irish tribe. In fact, Tommy is really a McMexican and is not at all Irish. But the more we get to know him,  he is more of a Mexi-can't than a Mexi-can. We speak more Spanish than he does. I'm thinking about checking his papers when he's not looking. 

To show us a bit of San Diego, Tommy took us to the Park Manor, one of the oldest hotels in San Diego. The top of the hotel is a bar with a wrap around balcony so you get a breathtaking view of the city. And the bar was loaded with men...about 400 of them! Great odds right?  Well, not one of them was interested in either of us. Now, we aren't that hard to look at but we couldn't get even a nibble. Hmm, what could it be. Oh wait...they're ALL gay. Well, at least we had a legitimate excuse for not meeting anyone this time.