San Diego, part 2 (and a side trip to Phoenix)
Our time in San Diego remains wonderful.
The main theme continues to be our confusion about why we're so dang busy all the time. I think we expected time to relax, work, hang out with my parents. But instead, every moment we're not working, we've got plans or errands or projects or activities. It's possible that this is because I have so many friends and family members already here -- there are so many people to see, and we want to maximize time with them. But I suspect the real reason is that we're just busy people. We both have so many projects we want to do, things we're interested in, stuff we want to try, and people we want to spend time with. I think our lives might just always be this way! I like it a lot. But we could probably both benefit from scheduling in more down time on occasion. Feels frustrating to schedule in down time when we have so little time here, though.
Another factor here is that it's hard to juggle all of our priorities. The purpose of the trip is to spend quality time with people, so on the one hand, we want to maximize the time we're doing things with others. This would imply that we should be scheduling our travel days to fly through non-people places as much as possible, and to spend most of our in-town time scheduling things to do. But that brings us to priority two -- we'd actually like to sight see along the way, so blowing through towns is a bummer, and we need to schedule in at least some time to stop and slow down and see the sights. Which takes time from hanging out with people. And finally, there's adulting to do! We both have work, I'm trying to continue to grow my business, there are meetings and errands. If this stuff was always the top priority, we wouldn't have time to have any fun! But it's the stuff that's also least forgiving if you ignore it, and it's got to get done. The entire trip so far has been a struggle between the three -- especially when we're choosing travel days and how many days to stay in each place. I think we're doing a good job balancing so far, but I think there will always be part of us that feels like we should be spending more time doing all three.
My favorite sliver from San Diego so far is that my parents are now obsessed with Mike's Oculus (virtual reality headset) and want to do it every single night. It brings me joy to watch them. I've also been going to belly dance class every week, and Mike and I went swing dancing. We did an escape room, and Mike took a photography class. And we've been able to spend lots of wonderful meals with lots of wonderful people.
The time is already flying by. It still feels good to be able to be around and be present for our family here. We've been staying in the guest room, so so far it still mostly feels like a normal trip to visit my parents instead of an Epic Vanlife Adventure. We've finally gotten around to organizing the RV some, though, so that definitely helped.
Two Fridays ago, we drove the RV to Scottsdale, AZ. We spent the weekend visiting Mike's college friend, Erik, and Erik's family. We pulled up at night and the guys somehow managed to fit the RV into a driveway that appeared long enough for only one car. We were looking forward to sleeping in the RV for the weekend, because being in the RV makes it feel more like we're on our trip again. And it's still interesting and weird how much being in the RV feels like you're home, and that the outside could be anywhere. Definitely doesn't feel like we're sleeping in our friend's driveway in the suburbs.
Mike made sure to fill up our propane tank before we left. We had been wary to use it because, due to a combination of a fluctuating tank level indicator and an unfamiliar smell and I'm sure a hefty dose of user error, we weren't confident that the tank was working correctly and were afraid of blowing ourselves up. Then we decided that the tank is fine, so we decided to use it the first night of the Scottsdale trip (especially the heater because I'm a wuss and the stove to make coffee). We slept all night the first night and it was comfy and warm, and I got up in the morning to make my coffee. The stove wouldn't light. I look at the control panel, and the propane switch hadn't been turned on! So I turned it on. It still wouldn't light. Mike remembered that the switch on the OUTSIDE hadn't been turned on. So apparently we had never turned the propane on, after all, and had slept all night without the heat. The user error goes deep with this one.
The following night, we used the propane and didn't blow up. But the third day, we turned it back on and got a really strong whiff of propane smell. Mike went outside to investigate, and I could smell it coming all the way from the other side of the RV through the front door inside to me. We decided that that's not normal, so to play it safe, we turned off the propane for the rest of the trip. Sigh! We'll bring it in for maintenance when we get back to San Diego.
Our drive back from Arizona landed on Mike's birthday, so even though we were driving, we tried to make it special. We stopped for lunch at Little Cesar's (on Mike's request -- it's one of his childhood nostalgia spots), got date shakes at Shield's, and stopped at the dinosaurs in Cabozon. All in all, an awesome trip!
