sweet farewell to solana beach

after our busy 'out-and-about' day on wednesday, we used thursday to pack and organize and walk the wonderful beach a couple more times.  we also had a good skype video call with Laura and sweet Kylee (loved that!) the day before they got released from the hospital.  Keith and Kady, we're sorry we missed you, but you guys were catching some pretty good 'shut-eye' over on that 'oh-so comfortable' day bed in Kylee's room.  So thankful you all are home now and kylee's doing better every day.  Have loved the pics of the girls on facebook!

Our trip across the desert toward arizona on interstate 8 friday morning was quite a contrast ~scenery-wise~from the past two weeks.  Oftentimes we were close enough to the border to see sections of whatever type of 'fence' exists there.  Back in view were the cacti, low hills and scrub landscape.  New to us were the beautiful and far-reaching sand dunes as we approached the cali-ariz border and we saw groups of atv-er's really whooping it up on these 'mini-mountains.'

Loved getting our gas tank filled up ~ for 30 cents less per gallon than elsewhere ~ at the the El Centro Naval Air Station.  Picked up some yummy Pepperidge Farm cookies at the PX while we were there to make leaving our beach home a little easier.

You might remember, on our way out on Oct. 3 that we were prepping some herb-roasted potatoes (ala Manifold Destiny) under the hood of our car....well, that may be a distant memory to us and our tastebuds, but when we had to stop at the Border Control checkpoint near Yuma, Arizona, the drug-sniffing dog that passed by our car sure was alerted to the remnants of olive oil, garlic, and oregano that, unbeknownst to us, remained on our engine!  Pretty funny!  The nice officers let us through, kids, so you're not going to have to bail 'dad and mom' out;)

Rested well in Glendale, Arizona on Friday night.....