We set the GPS for the long way round and as usual a four hour drive became a lot more. For the most part the back roads were through unremarkable semi desert terrain.

More interesting was the drive around Big Bear Lake. The levels are way lower than we recall from a couple of years ago, one side of the bridge is totally dry now. From there the road wound it's way down towards the coast, the marine layer making for a spectacular view from above it.

After that we were in the LA/San Diego hinterland; again nothing very interesting but at least it wasn't a totally boring freeway.

I posted some pics saying we were on our way to SD and almost instantly got a message from Jessica asking when we were due in. I let her know once we had checked into the hotel and we arranged to catch up at the zoo tomorrow morning. She planned on getting an annual membership which would get us in cheaper. All I'd found was a $5 off the usual $50ea entry voucher so her getting us there for $65 total will be a great saving.

We took just about everything into our hotel room and spent the evening condensing everything, doing some ruthless culling and checking weights. We think we will be fine but to a degree it depends on the weight of what we've had sent to the LA hotel and what we get from Toms on the way up to LA.

With a bit of a sense of achievement we watched a couple of shows and slept early.