After a refreshing night’s sleep and a hotel breakfast, we took some time to catch up on emails and call the insurance company to report our mishap in Big Sur State Park before heading to San Diego and daughters Deb and Amy. (USAA makes filing accident claims and arrangements for estimates, repairs and car rental so easy.) It was another sunny southern California day and happily our little Miata was still plugging along.

Unfortunately, southern California traffic was true to form. What should have been a 2 ½ hour drive from Thousand Oaks to San Diego turned out to be a 4 ½ hour drive. At the beginning, it wasn’t so bad so we left with the top down, but along the way, traffic came to a complete halt and the weather was so oppressive that we had to turn on the air conditioner. Unfortunately, being sandwiched in front and back and on both sides, it was not possible to get out and put the top up; but with the windows up, we got a lot of relief from the air conditioner even with the top down. All the way from north LA to Santa Ana our average speed was around 15 to 20 miles per hour. There were periods of time when we just sat in the middle of the freeway and didn’t move. Ok, enough complaining. We were happy to safely reach Deb’s home where she had hugs, cold beer for me and wine for Peggy!

After a delicious dinner and wonderful visit with Deb and Amy we had our story time and tucked in for the night.