Day 1 (Saturday)
We left SoJo at 9:30 and hit the road going south. We are on our way to San Diego to visit our friends there. We are excited. Not much excitement happens on the road. We ate in Delta. There is a good little hamburger restaurant there. Still not much excitement. We see lots of desert. We get to Vegas around 6 and start looking for a place to stay. There are none! Can you believe it! All of Vegas and no place to stay! By some miracle we find a room at Lucky's. We ate at a casino and it was so good I forgot the name of it. We then played a couple penny machines and went to bed.
Day 2 (Sunday)
We got up and had showers, now this shower was one of the best I've had at a hotel. We left Lucky's around 9 and stopped at a gas station. I had bought bagels for the trip and we were looking for cream cheese. Unfortunately we found some. It was the weirdest cream cheese I have ever had, it was all grainy and didn't spread well. It was awful but we ate it anyways. The only eventful thing on the ride was we saw an accident. We were driving and saw a huge dust cloud in front of us, then everyone stopped. As we got closer we saw that it was a couple of cars and it looked like one had flipped over a couple times. From what we saw everyone looked alright. We drove a little slower the rest the way to San Diego. We are staying with our friends in San Diego. Jon, Karen, Matt, A.J., Becca, and Adam. We arrived in San Diego around 2 and it was hot! It was like 85 degrees. That is hard to take when you are coming from highs of 40's. Our friend Jon took us on a mini tour of the city with more to come later. I will keep you informed.
Day 3 (Monday)
This day was pretty relaxed. Us, Becca, and Adam went to La Jolla beach in the morning to look at the ocean and seals. The waves coming in were pretty high and a couple people were body surfing. It was a gorgeous day. There were a lot of seals in a cove they made for kids to swim in. A sign said that the seals were pregnant. We didn't get to see a birth though, that would have been cool. As we left we went to find the San Diego Temple. It is beautiful. We took lots of pictures. We then went back to Jon's, had lunch, and played ping-pong. It was fun. We then went on a drive to the cross on the hill. I forget the name of it. It is a huge cross on top of one of the hills close to the ocean. There is a war memorial around it. We went up as the sun was setting and looked out over the city below. I love being high like that. They had a pretty good sunset today. When we got home Karen had made dinner. It was so good. She barbecued chicken and steak, and we had corn and broccoli. It was delicious. Well I'm off to bed, we have a big day of sight seeing tomorrow.
Day 4 (Tuesday)
Today Jon drove us around the city more. We went and saw Coronado. They have a huge cemetery there. It was weird to imagine all those people died. We took a couple pictures around the lookout. We drove down to the beach but we didn't go on it because the tide was too high. We then went downtown for Mexican food. It was pretty good. We drove across the bridge and saw a really old hotel, I can't remember when it was built. It was huge. We drove through one of the richest parts of San Diego. It is incredible that houses that look like they wouldn't be worth more than 150,000 in Utah are worth 500,00 to a million here. Today is Valentines so Jon, Karen, Dad, and Catherine went out for dinner. We had leftovers and watched TV.
Day 5 (Wednesday)
Today we went to the Aerospace museum. It was cool. The craziest thing I saw was the Zepplin. I had no idea they were that big. It was 776 feet long, and 100 feet in diameter. I think this was in Balboa park. I could be wrong though. We then walked through the park and to the plant exhibit. They had a lot of beautiful plants. I enjoyed seeing all the orchids. We then went outside and I think there was a school group there. There was a pond with a couple ducks and the kids were running up and down the side of the pond yelling at the ducks. They were having a duck race. It almost seemed like the ducks knew. It was funny. We then walked through the cactus area. There are a lot of different cacti. I didn't know some of them grew on trees. It was cool to see. We then went home and hung out. Dad went with Matt to do some digging and after us, A.J., and Becca went to the beach at about 11. It was fun. The tide was coming in so we would run from the water. We saw kelp balls. They are weird. There are little ones all over the place and they pop when you step on them. There are also huge ones, like basketballs. We took some night pics and went home.
Day 6 (Thursday)
Erin went to the Temple early today. She said it was gorgeous. When she got home we loaded up the Jeep and took off for Vegas. Jon and Karen were leaving too. We said good-bye to everyone. Matt is coming to Vegas. His parents don't know. He is going to surprise them tomorrow. We stopped in Perris to go to lunch with a missionary who Erin taught on her mission. It was fun. We then drove to Vegas. It was a long drive. We are staying at the Plaza. We had a shrimp cocktail and decided to gamble. We found some penny machines and threw in 5 bucks. It was fun. I won 60 dollars. We had pizza for dinner and went to bed.
Day 7 (Friday)
Me and Erin got up and had some breakfast. Dad was at the bottle show. We decided to gamble a little. We didn't really win anything but we played our 5's for a long time. We had a few virgin pina coladas too. They are so good. After we were looking around for everyone. We found Dad at the bottle show. He said he was going to hang around a little so we went back to our room. Dad and Jon finally showed up and wanted to go out to red rock. It was 5:00 by the time we headed out and the roads were jammed packed and we were loosing sunlight so we decide to go to a buffet instead. We went to the Rio. It is a good buffet. We then went back to the Plaza and did a little gambling. It was so much fun! I was playing a penny machine and I won 80 dollars. It was great. I think I am the lucky one of the trip.
Day 8 (Saturday)
We got up early and us, Jon, and Matt went to breakfast. It was pretty good. We then went to the bottle show and looked around. Me and Erin found a couple of belt buckles that are awesome. I am excited. Me, Erin, Dad, and Matt then went out to Red Rock canyon to hike around a little. It was cold and windy, but fun. I love it out there. We then went back to the bottle show and Matt flew home. Us, Jon, and Karen went to the buffet over at the Golden Nugget. We then gambled a little. I won some but we ended up playing it all away. It was fun though. I still ended up with more money than I came with and I bought a lot of stuff. We said good-bye to Karen and Jon and went to bed.
Day 9 (Sunday)
We started our journey home. It was an okay drive. We left at about 9 and got home around 3. It was cold and there was snow on the ground. So not very fun. But all-in-all it was a really good trip. I enjoyed every minute of it. I hope we get to do it again soon.