After 8 days in San Felipe, it was time to head north.
We decided to go across the border at
Mexicali.
We wanted to stay away from
Tijuana.
The border crossing there is crazy.
They process through 50,000,000 people per year, making it one of the
busiest crossings in the world.
That
means on average 5,000 people per hour go through that crossing, every hour of
the year!
No thanks!!
Mexicali crossing was a
relatively short wait of ½ hour, and we were across and heading west to California beaches.
San Diego area is one of our
favorite spots to spend time in the
US.
There are so many things to see from
Balboa Park (site of a
world’s fair many years ago),
La Jolla
(pronounced la hoya), to
Old Town, the
Lamp Light District,
Coronado, the
countless miles of cycling you can do on the large bays in the area, the
beaches, down town camping, and many more.
Because it has been under the control of 3 different nations
(Spain, Mexico, and finally USA)
in the passed 200 years, it has a cultural history that is very unique in North America.
The town is very bike friendly, so we have been riding the
seawalls and bike paths for between 8 and 15 miles every second day. For those into the food scene, the town is
incredible with a countless variety of restaurants everywhere you go. It is also amazing that they always seem to
be busy.
As usual, the weather has been wonderful. In the day the temperature is between 70 and
80, and it cools down to 60 at night.
From the picture, you can see that sunsets here are “to die
for”. Also, if you need anything, it
seems that every store conceivable has a location within 7 or 8 miles from
where we are staying on the bay.
Yesterday Ade and I had a discussion on whether we should go
to a San Diego Chargers game against Peyton Mannings Denver Broncos. It promised to be a great game with 2 good
teams. Ade figured that the ticket price
of well over $100 was more than her interest in the game, so I got myself ready
on the scooter and left to check things out on the scooter at a little after
9:00 for a game that started at 1:25
Thank goodness I was driving the scooter. I arrived at the stadium just before 10:00
and there was a ½ mile line up just to get into this enormous parking lot that
already had thousands of cars in it.
With the scooter I was able to slide down the side of the
line of cars and slip into the parking pay both. What a surprise when I had to pay $25 (the
same as a car), but for preferred parking near the stadium, it was $50, and if
you had a motor home of any size, it was $150!
Even though I paid the $25, I found that scooters and
motorcycles could use “preferred parking”.
This was a bonus as I got to pull up right in front of the ticket booth. When I got to the booth, I noticed almost no
line up. The lady at the booth said
tickets were basically sold out (all 69,000!) with the exception of a few
single seats they were selling off at $130.
With a gulp at the sticker price, I decided to take the plunge and buy
one.
With over 3 hours to kill, I knew that I could not return
back to the camper and fight the traffic for a second, more busier time. I decided to take the scooter and drive
around the enormous parking lot (that in circumference was about one mile!). The extremities of the complete parking lot
were covered with “tail gate parties”.
Some people had arrived before 8:00 to set up. They had barbeques of all sizes, big screen
televisions of all sizes on the backs of pickups, large tables to layout their
food and condiments, and areas for games, including football! It was truly a festive environment! However, nothing was for sale! Everyone was feeding their own group and
friends, and of course “lookie-loos” like me!
After a while, I drove my scooter back to may “preferred
parking” location. By a stroke of luck,
the car that pulled in beside me started pulling out their shade tent, and
setting up their little tail gate party right in the preferred parking
area. When they saw me, they instantly
invited me to spend the morning with them.
I was treated to great burritos, chips and beer. We got along great! One gentleman was a retired teacher, who had
been coming to this spot for 48 years as a seasons ticket holder!! Of course the whole family of 3 generations
had seasons tickets. It was a way of
life for them.
Seeing 69,000 crazy football fans in a stadium was quite a site it was a sea of Blue (Charger colors) and Orange(Denvercolors). I could not believe that the opposition supporters we so numerous. Apparently thousands of them had come to the game from Denver! They seem to spare no expense when it comes to supporting their teams in the NFL. I actually saw a complete private motor home painted in charger colors in the parking lot!
From one of the pictures you can see that America does all it can to keep giving the military a very high profile. Over 500 military members were guests of the game, and half time was devoted to patriotic songs and activities, including having 10’s of thousands of stadium fans hold up colours that together spelled out “Thank you Military”.
Once the game was over (nearing 5:00), it was quite a scene to see 69,000 people head for their cars at the same time. Fortunately, I was able to park the scooter near the stadium. The parking lot chaos had already begun by the time I was moving as many people left the game with a few minutes to go to get a head start (even though the final outcome of the game was in doubt!).
With the scooter, I was able to “slide” along side of all the snarled and stranded traffic. It must have been an amuzing sight as I followed two large Harley Davidsons through the traffic and onto the main road home. Even the main road was 3 lanes of stop and go, but the Harleys and myself glided along beside the traffic and made a pleasant ride on my way back to our camper. By the time I arrived it was 6:00, showing that going to an NFL game is truly a full day experience.
Ade truly enjoyed her laid back day and as usual we spent the evening in the hot tub.
