Meghan은 간다, Meghan ya no esta aqui

San Diego

Friday Mom, Dad, myself, and a bunch of other people headed to San Diego in three vans. I won't go into all the details, but Mom left earlier with one group, and Dad and I followed a few hours later with another group. We made it to the border fine, at about 12:45. Once we were situated in line at the border I said "okay... I guess 2:05", meaning that that would be the time when we crossed the border. An hour and twenty minutes at the border is pretty typical, if not kind of short for the middle of the day. Guess what time we got to the actual border, where we talked to the guard? Ohh, about 2:07. I'm pretty good :)

One hilarious thing happened at the border. My dad is really into networking and giving out his business card like there's no tomorrow. He keeps a stash in his wallet for the prime opportunities of telling people about Welcome Home. When we got into line at the border I noticed a couple of big white vans with lots of people in them. These types of vans are well-known for being church groups doing missions trips in Mexico. I half-jokingly said to Dad "you should give them a card!" and that's just what he did. They were in the lane next to us, so dad motioned for the lady to roll down her window. When they couldn't quite reach across to hand over the card, Dad commissioned a Mexican lady (who was walking between cars to sell her goods) to pass the card along.

But of course, that was just the beginning. My wonderful idea grew, and while we were really sitting much closer to the border, Dad got out, I took over the driver's seat, and he walked around to the big white vans he saw, handing out cards, while those of us in the van laughed. It paid off, though.

After the border, driving north on I-5, our tire lost a good amount of tread, and Dad decided to pull off at the next exit and change it. What was at the next exit? Nothing less than an In-n-Out restaurant. That's what I call divine interference. So Dad changed the tire, then came in to eat, and a man approached our table. He said "Hi, my name is _____, and you handed us a card at the border. We were just at.... " and began a conversation. Dad was able to tell him about what they do at Welcome Home, and it was really nice. They were a group from Grand Rapids, Michigan (!!). Then Dad started scouting out other groups at the busy In-n-Out and introduced himself to a group from Virginia (!!) who were heading into our area this week and were really quite interested. So all in all, it was really cool and great for Dad to be doing this networking. Hopefully it will pay off in the future.

We dropped all of our people off at their needed destinations and then we hit the town. Dad to get a new tire and tools, Mom and I to shop for various things for ourselves, for Welcome Home, for other people in Mexico. It felt almost like we were trying to beat the clock. We spent the night at the Vagabond Inn, which I loved because it felt so retro and vintage Southern California, with its building design, and the huge palm trees onsite:

We were doing all of our errands around the Chula Vista area (holla, Bob!), and the weather was kinda funky:

Saturday early afternoon we arrived at the San Diego airport to pick up our new group. Driving to the San Diego airport is nice because you pass right by the harbor with all of the boats. As we did that trip (driving to the airport) a few times in 24 hours, I became familiar with the drive:




It was fun spending this time in San Diego. I joked with Mom and Dad that Chula Vista (a suburb south of San Diego) has now become their "retirement town", they know it so well. Mom and I will be back next weekend, and hopefully we will be able to spend some more time down at the harbor.

Life is good here.

posted by Meghan @ 8:50 AM