Vacation. Oh boy.

Yesyerday, I returned from several days in Mexico.  Rah.

I have had better vacations.  Much better vacations. There was a fair amount of crankiness on people's parts (and I'm not exempting myself in this), and not enough time to do what each of us wanted. Because of complications in the Rocket Scientist's field season resulting from issues between NASA and the DOD, sparked off by the actions of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (gee, thanks, JPL!), he had to be later coming home than planned and our trip was cut from ten days down to five.

The night before we left, Vincent, the black Mustang, died of as yet undiagnosed electronic failure. Fine.  We had to simply leave him on the street rather than in the driveway. Of course, there was nothing to steal and since it wouldn't start we didn't have to worry about the car being jacked.

We made it down to Mexico pretty much without incident. I drove through from Mission Hills to Ensanada, primarily because I get so much less cranky than the Rocket Scientist driving in urban traffic. Since I cannot navigate my way out of the proverbial paper bag, he needed to give directions.  The most nerve-wracking part was navigating streets in Tijuana getting to the highway.

Ensanada itself was okay, I guess.  I would have been just as happy -- happier, perhaps -- lying on the beach in Santa Monica.  One of my requirements for this vacation was that we go somewhere near water. Last year, we did deserts, and the year before mountains, volcanoes and forests, so I thought it only fair we hit oceans.

I am an ocean person of the first order, and really wanted to hear the surf.  In a place like Ensanada -- or San Diego, or Key West -- all I really need is a beach, a blanket and a book.  And if necessary, I can do without the book. That I only got to spend about two hours at the beach made me unhappy and unreasonable. Although to tell the truth, the marine geyser at Bufadora was really cool.

One aspect of the trip satisfied totally: the food.  It will be a long time before I can eat Mexican food in the States.  There is nothing like the taste of freshly pressed and cooked corn tortillas.  I normally avoid corn tortillas because I think they taste rubbery, but these were fresh and light, filled with either carne asada or fried fish. Yum.

Then there was the trip back.  We went an interior route, which was dry and desert-like, instead of the coastal route we had come down on.  We spent three hours crossing the border, which drove me batty.  After that barrel of fun, we stopped in San Ysidro to get gas and change money.

At which point the great San Diego curse hit.*

Each of the past four trips to San Diego have had something bad happen, either in San Diego or on the way to or from.  Three trips ago, it was an incident involving a waitress in a restaurant and my middle son, which ended up for a short time being a matter for extensive Internet discussion and which had us contacting the San Diego city attorney and contemplating legal action.  The time after was Echidna Quest, which while it had its amusing moments, also involved the car dying in Pasadena, and the Not So Little Drummer Boy spending an entire day in the hotel throwing up from food poisoning.

The time after that was the worst.  While in the San Diego Wild Animal Park, we got word that my beloved sister-in-law Nadia died.  Before we could get back, I had an asthma attack severe enough to require a visit to an urgent care clinic, so that we were late leaving.  While we driving back frantically so that my husband could catch a ten a.m. plane to Atlanta, the transmission on the van died.  Not only died, but self-destructed so spectacularly that the headquarters of Ford took an interest in it.  At midnight.  In the Central Valley, where the temperature was close to 100 degrees, with the omnipresent smell of cattle.  We waited three hours before a tow truck came and picked us up, then dropped us off at a hotel, where we got two hours of sleep before a friend rented a van and came and picked us up.

This time, the latch on the back liftgate broke.  This may not sound like all that much, until you consider we were packed to the gills with no way to close the trunk.  After various attempts to remedy the situation, we were reduced to tying the trunk closed so that we could go on our way.  When we stopped at Santa Clarita for the day, we had to unload everything through the front and side of the van. Which we had to reverse the next morning when we left.

Next time we head south, I refuse to go any farther than the Orange County line.

We then went to Traveltown in Griffith Park so that Railfan could look around.  I have to admit that was rather fun, especially since RF got to show off his accumulated knowledge of rail cars and locomotives. (And boy, does he know a lot.) I found listening to him highly educational, and he was happy to have an interested audience.

But then we had the long slog up I-5 through the Central Valley. We stopped for dinner at Pea Soup Andersen's in Santa Nella (in spite of my desire to run straight through -- which would have been a serious mistake), and got home at 9.  And then the kids had to get ready (including the Red-Headed Menace finishing up a summer assignment for his AP History class -- he was up until midnight), because school started today.  I had forgotten to take in the mail, and get someone to take in the trash cans (we had had to leave them in place for the trash/recycling pickup the day we left), so I am waiting to get a citation from the city in the mail for leaving the bins out for more than forty-eight hours. Penwiper the cat showed just how happy she was with the situation (even though we had gotten someone to take care of her while we were gone) by urinating all over a basket of clean clothes in my room.  And she chose to do so after we got home -- I discovered the message right after she left it. I love my cat, but sometimes I want to make a throw rug out of her.

Okay, so no one died and no one went to jail.  And I didn't even freak out about the car situation.  But I tell you, I need another vacation.  Near a beach.  By myself.

*Okay, so San Ysidro is not San Diego proper, but it is in San Diego County.