San Diego trip
This is our 3rd time to visit San Diego. It has become our family tradition to visit San Diego in winter.
Because we did not want Matthew to skip school, we planned to leave Friday afternoon, Dec. 16th. That also meant I need to work Friday pretty much the whole day. Packing was not quite organized but we managed to have most of the stuff in boxes.
There were always surprises. All 3 kids got diarrhea problems starting the night earlier. We decided not to take any chances and visited our trusted Chinese doctor Chen YuXiu. When we left her clinic, it was almost 3 o'clock, meaning we would not arrive in San Diego until mid-night.
We took 101, 152 west, and highway 5. The driving was uneventful except 2 stops for bathroom and dinner time for McDonald. Purchased Starbuck's canned double espresso but it turned out not so good, too much starch taste.
Driving on highway 5 at winter night is challanging - Dense fog around the intersection of highway 99 and highway 5. Luckily our 2004 Sienna has fog lights. I turned them on and the drive was quite pleasant. This year the fog was not that bad, only about 5 minutes drive time or so; unlike last year we had only 5 minutes of clear vision.
Right before we were about to enter LA mountain area, we had our regular stop. When we hit the road, we found out the right headlight of our 2004 Sienna was out. Maybe it was jealous about the fog lights and quitted working.
Highway 5 into LA was OK. We took 605 then 405 to bypass Orange County because highway 5 was clogged there. We arrived at our destination, Oceanside city, at 10:30 PM.
When we unpacked our stuff in our resort, I was quite upset for just a moment because
1. A 5 gallon thermos without power cord
2. No chopsticks
3. No razor
Well, those things turned out to be not so important anyway and we will probably skip them the next time we travel.
Our schedule was
Saturday Lego Land
Sunday Sea World
Monday Beach and Costco shopping
Tuesday San Diego Zoo
Wednesday Sea World
Thursday Lego Land
Friday - pack and drive back
We followed our schedule and managed to visit Toyota Carlsbad twice on Monday and Thursday for the headlight. The light bulb was 300 dollars a piece. Toyota tried to fix it twice and both times it failed in 5 minutes. Lucky me. This thing was under warranty and I did not need to pay a penny.
All family members got some respiratory problems at the end of our journey. The air condition in South California was quite bad. In the evenings, you saw fog coming into the coast from ocean. But it was not just fog, it had tiny particles so it was really smog. On our way back, we too 405 and go through Long Beach and the western side of LA. The sky was grey, not because of overcast but because there was no rain in six months.
This was the first time we ever drove highway 5 back at day time. We saw a huge pasture full of cattle. No wonder we always smelled something when we drove highway 5 at night before.
After we came back, we spent the whole week trying to recover from our illness. Meanwhile, I was busy running between Audi and Toyota dealers to have both of my cars maintained. Audi cost me 2000 dollars because all the belts, water pump, and sensors were replaced. The dealer also managed to fix the oil leak problem. Even though the car itself costs 2500, I would rather put the same money to keep it running because you can hardly get a car that good with 2500. And for Toyota, the light problem was the ECU (must be some control unit), not the bulb. We got both of our cars back before new year eve so I could pick up my sister's family from China trip at SFO airport on 12/31. The bad thing
was that my Toyota got a BIG scratch on the left running board. Toyota promised to fix that on 1/4/2006, but I cannot send my car for repair until 1/9/2006. So we will see.
By the way, this is what happens after two weeks without razor...
Because we did not want Matthew to skip school, we planned to leave Friday afternoon, Dec. 16th. That also meant I need to work Friday pretty much the whole day. Packing was not quite organized but we managed to have most of the stuff in boxes.
There were always surprises. All 3 kids got diarrhea problems starting the night earlier. We decided not to take any chances and visited our trusted Chinese doctor Chen YuXiu. When we left her clinic, it was almost 3 o'clock, meaning we would not arrive in San Diego until mid-night.
We took 101, 152 west, and highway 5. The driving was uneventful except 2 stops for bathroom and dinner time for McDonald. Purchased Starbuck's canned double espresso but it turned out not so good, too much starch taste.
Driving on highway 5 at winter night is challanging - Dense fog around the intersection of highway 99 and highway 5. Luckily our 2004 Sienna has fog lights. I turned them on and the drive was quite pleasant. This year the fog was not that bad, only about 5 minutes drive time or so; unlike last year we had only 5 minutes of clear vision.
Right before we were about to enter LA mountain area, we had our regular stop. When we hit the road, we found out the right headlight of our 2004 Sienna was out. Maybe it was jealous about the fog lights and quitted working.
Highway 5 into LA was OK. We took 605 then 405 to bypass Orange County because highway 5 was clogged there. We arrived at our destination, Oceanside city, at 10:30 PM.
When we unpacked our stuff in our resort, I was quite upset for just a moment because
1. A 5 gallon thermos without power cord
2. No chopsticks
3. No razor
Well, those things turned out to be not so important anyway and we will probably skip them the next time we travel.
Our schedule was
Saturday Lego Land
Sunday Sea World
Monday Beach and Costco shopping
Tuesday San Diego Zoo
Wednesday Sea World
Thursday Lego Land
Friday - pack and drive back
We followed our schedule and managed to visit Toyota Carlsbad twice on Monday and Thursday for the headlight. The light bulb was 300 dollars a piece. Toyota tried to fix it twice and both times it failed in 5 minutes. Lucky me. This thing was under warranty and I did not need to pay a penny.
All family members got some respiratory problems at the end of our journey. The air condition in South California was quite bad. In the evenings, you saw fog coming into the coast from ocean. But it was not just fog, it had tiny particles so it was really smog. On our way back, we too 405 and go through Long Beach and the western side of LA. The sky was grey, not because of overcast but because there was no rain in six months.
This was the first time we ever drove highway 5 back at day time. We saw a huge pasture full of cattle. No wonder we always smelled something when we drove highway 5 at night before.
After we came back, we spent the whole week trying to recover from our illness. Meanwhile, I was busy running between Audi and Toyota dealers to have both of my cars maintained. Audi cost me 2000 dollars because all the belts, water pump, and sensors were replaced. The dealer also managed to fix the oil leak problem. Even though the car itself costs 2500, I would rather put the same money to keep it running because you can hardly get a car that good with 2500. And for Toyota, the light problem was the ECU (must be some control unit), not the bulb. We got both of our cars back before new year eve so I could pick up my sister's family from China trip at SFO airport on 12/31. The bad thing
was that my Toyota got a BIG scratch on the left running board. Toyota promised to fix that on 1/4/2006, but I cannot send my car for repair until 1/9/2006. So we will see.By the way, this is what happens after two weeks without razor...
posted by Mark Mao at 11:21 AM
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