Rolling Through SoCal

Southern California, CA

Not the real State Line sign

2 Nights in Spring Valley CA (a suburb of San Diego)

We are currently in a Tustin Airbnb, which is an apartment in a giant apartment complex. It's absolutely under the radar because the listed address is slightly different than the address you get when you receive your check-in instructions. The other day we drove from Vegas to the San Diego area and visited with family and now we are working our way north on our way to our Portland stay which starts next week. We had a lot of camping planned but the inches of rain coming has changed those plans.  The current plan is 2 nights in Spring Valley, 2 nights in Tustin, CA, 2 nights in Alameda, CA, and then a few nights camping, and closing out with 2 nights in different hotels in Oregon.

We stopped by Spring Valley to visit Mom and Bill at the Covenant Living at Mount Miguel. It's a beautiful retirement community with a lot of amenities.

Amenities that include these weird scooters.

And estate sales where they sell absolutely everything left behind by residents who have completed their stay at Mt. Miguel.  You can't take the napkins with you.

After our visit we marked off another Tiki Bar.  Chief's Da Tiki Bar in Bonita CA. It had good drinks and a wide selection of food and allowed dogs. 

The Tiki Bar had a strong San Diego vibe.

After lunch we headed down to 3rd St. in Downtown Chula Vista to walk around. It's a great walkable downtown with a lot of character.

Chula Vista seems like a proud community.

We visited Chula Vista Brewing Company, a Black owned brewery making great beers.

Sadly all of the wide shoes were boring and women's shoes.

Our next stop was Thr3e Punks Brewing.

More of that Chula Vista pride

There was also a cool looking skate shop and sneaker store.  The whole front of the building opened up like a garage to take advantage of the perfect Chula Vista weather.

2 Nights in Tustin

On Saturday we drove from San Diego to Tustin.  We stopped by Orange, the city were our house is, and drove around to see how it has changed.  We took Francis for a walk around the block where our house is located to make sure it looked good and it did.  The neighborhood appears to be in better shape than when we left it.

Our house in Orange, CA.  The photo is crooked because I wanted to take photos on the sly.  It looks great!

After checking into our shady Airbnb, we headed over to our friend Darrin's house to play some board games and see his Tiki Bar. We visited Darrin's Tiki Bar almost two years ago (read about that here) and he has made a lot of changes and even given it a name, The Lost Lagoon Lounge.  

Darrin has had a nice plaque made for his bar

He has added nice foliage hanging from the ceiling.

He gave us a tour and showed us all of the decorations that he collects for his bar on his travels.

He even has branded placemats and glasses.

Darrin behind his bar.  He made us a great Mai Tai.

We spent the rest of the evening playing Forgotten Waters, an App Assisted Board Game, with Darrin and Jo.  He has quite a few App Assisted games to choose from.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Birding With a Camel, check it out.  We went birding with a camel!