Skip to main content

Back to the Border

Monday, May 30th – Dripping Springs State Park to Tijuana River Regional Park, San Diego, California 

 We woke up worried that the camp host would come and bust us for staying in someone else’s spot. It didn’t happen. The camp host was happy going about his business as we were happy going about ours. The kids spent the morning playing on a hillside with a group of other children. We got some suggestions from their parents on what to do in Cali. Overall, we got out early to finish the hour drive to San Diego. 

 Our destination was the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park. The Tijuana River is basically a sewage river that starts in Tijuana, Mexico and flows across the border to the ocean near San Diego. This upsets people in San Diego because it affects water quality at their beautiful beaches. An international effort was made to spend billions to clean up the river, removing 400 tonnes of garbage, and build the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park. When we spoke to them, there was plenty of availability. We were somewhat concerned about a review that noted a smell from the nearby river in the campground. We figured we’d check it out and go from there. 

 We drove the hilly approach to San Diego then past and almost all the way to the border. As we pulled off the exit to go to the park, we saw the border wall gleaming on the hill above the park. There were horse farms everywhere with rentals available to take you to the beach. When we arrived, the park worker was showing off his rosy boa constrictor named Salsa. The girls loved the snake and kept going back to hold it. The interesting thing was their play area. It was all logs. They had the ends of logs sticking out of the sand so you could jump between them, a log sea saw, various log climbing structures; it was unique. There was no smell. 


 We settled into our campsite in the early afternoon and that hasn’t happened for ages. We just crashed. It’s been a whirlwind, moving every day to see the next sight. Enjoying a National Park all day, hiking and touring around, then driving to camp near the next park. Setting up at night when you can’t really see the spot you decided to stay the night in. 

The kids went to the park to play, Gen and John napped, and I enjoyed the warm afternoon. The kids quickly found some new friends and they gradually migrated into their campsite. They asked if they could hike up the mountain, a nearby hike to a viewpoint. Their friend’s mother, Michelle, offered to take them. They then spent forever on the teeter totter, they loved it. 

 Eventually, we rallied and decided to go into Chula Vista, a San Diego suburb, to see the sunset on Imperial beach. The park we settled at was iconic; basketball court play pick-up ball, play structure for the kids, a few guys practicing tight rope walking and the beach in the background. We watched a cloudy sunset before John needed to race to the washroom; he mostly made it. Our trip home featured a grocery store and a McDonalds.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Meow Wolf and O

Wednesday, May 25th –Lake Mead National Recreation Area to Las Vegas, Nevada – Day 104  We woke up in our roadside turn out and got ready for the day. Our plan was to go for a swim at Lake Mead, see the Hoover Dam and head back into Vegas. The morning was stifling hot, we were looking forward to the swim.   We drove to the visitor centre at Lake Mead Recreation Centre. We could see Lake Mead on the way. The water was well below the high-water line on the rocks. At the visitor centre we got our passport stamped, filled our water bottles, and received junior ranger booklets. The air conditioning was so nice we set up the kids to work on their booklets and hung around. The kids finished up enough activities that they were sworn in by a very nice ranger before we left.   We decided to go see the Hoover Dam first. We dropped the trailer in the parking lot. We heard it might need to be opened at the security checkpoint and we couldn’t be bothered. The H...

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 1

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91  Utah is another planet. I cannot do justice to the sights that I have seen in Canyonlands National Park. They are beyond compare. I would encourage everyone to visit. The pictures we have taken do not convey the beauty of the scenery we witnessed.   We woke up in the morning after a late night. The kids did some schoolwork. We ate our oatmeal. We tried to clean up the dust that was all over the trailer. The wind had subsided in the night and the morning was pleasant and warm. Aisling had made us promise that we would climb the rock that they had all been climbing on. We strapped on our hiking boots and started towards the rock. A quick climb later we were at the top; on the way down, we were looking for pretty rocks.  The road to Canyonlands sits between two buttes with their cliffs rising on either side. The drive was thirty minutes to the entrance. The visitor centre had displays that detailed what each layer of the canyo...

A Desert Forest - Part 4

We finally decided to move to our last destination before the sun set. The Arch Rock Nature trail was next. We reached the parking lot and saw the rocks in the distance, we were debating what we wanted to do. We just started moving and once we did, we found ourselves racing down the trail to the rocks. The kids wanted to play monster and once they started running, everyone else was running as well. We had another poo-mergency with no restroom in sight, the evidence is buried in the desert. There was more climbing on the rocks. We took pictures of the sun setting and took a quick look at the Arch rock before starting back to the car.  Gen was behind the wheel, an hour later we were leaving the park’s south entrance. We stopped at the Ranger station to freshen up in the bathroom and fill our water bottles before heading to our campsite. Luckily, the site was the overflow campsite for the park so was minutes from the outside of the park....