Road Trip to San Diego

July 23-29, 2013

We made a whirlwind trip to San Diego in order to renew our tourist visas and buy a TON of stuff.  There were no rental cars in Santa Rosalia so Tim took the bus down to Loreto and came back with a mini-van.  We drove all the way to San Diego in one day and then had three wonderful days with friends and family amongst all of the errands.  It was a difficult trip, but it was so worth it.

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There’s nothing in the logbook about this, but I distinctly remember getting hassled at a checkpoint near Ensenada where they searched our car and also my purse and found that I had a couple thousand dollars worth of pesos and they wanted to know why.  In my very broken Spanish I tried to explain that our boat is in Santa Rosalia and we were preparing to sail up to Bahia de Los Angeles for the summer where there are no ATMs so I had taken a bunch of cash for food, etc.  Over and over he asked me the same thing and over and over I tried to explain.  I’m not sure if he ever actually understood more or if he just gave up, I’m just happy he didn’t ask for a bribe.

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We drove back to Santa Rosalia on July 27 and rushed around for two days in order to get off the dock as soon as we could.  I had done my research regarding customs and had put everything in a spreadsheet and calculated what I thought we would owe at the border.  When we stopped and they opened the van and saw how packed it was, and I showed them my spreadsheet I think we overwhelmed them and they just waved us on.