Day 22 - The long drive to San Diego

---

Packed up the car again, grabbed a quick breakfast, gassed up and began the longest drive of our holiday - 750km to San Diego. Tomtom had the time estimated as 7 hrs 50 min - ewwwww! Kids were primed with Nintendo, laptop, books and ipods to help pass the time.

We had soon left the beautiful red rocks and were back on the 4 lane highways passing thru the dry, desolate desert country which domitates the Nevada and Arizona countryside we have seen so far. Every now and then we would come across irrigated pastures where they were growing vast paddocks of some crop or another, plus these absolutely MASSIVE cattle feedlots. There must be thousands of cows all penned up under shade shelters eating tons and tons of food out of troughs - not grass in the paddock like at home. Sad!

Another notable thing was the number of RV's on the road. Now these aren't your average ex-rental Maui 6 berth camper nor your converted Jap import bus, but 40 foot plus fully equiped palaces on wheels, complete with pop-out sides and every one of them is towing an additional vehicle such as a VW beetle or a Jeep Cherokee. One version we passed was actually a brand new truck cab with a really fancy mobile home behind - unbelievable!! There's not just one or two every now and then, but hundreds of them plying their way along the highways.

Only stopped for petrol and a quick loo break (as well as the three compulsory border control checks as the road passes very close to the Mexican border) on this long journey which helped make the time go faster and we made it to San Diego by 4pm. TomTom had a bit of a meltdown and went completely up the whopp just as the interstate turned into a 10 lane jam packed city highway. Had us freaking out a bit and Steve had to do some very rapid lane changes from left to right in 30 feet to avoid us ending up god knows where. Not sure why it does this from time to time, but it really isn't condusive to stress free city driving!!

Checked into our last of nine hotels - the Homewood Suites at Liberty Station and were surprised with an upgrade to a two bedroom suite complete with full kitchen & two bathrooms. Also included at this hotel is complementary breakfast and wait for it..... A hot meal including beer, wine and softdrinks every night. What fantastically awesome value for money!!!

---