We flew to San Diego via Alaska Airlines. Our jet had two seats on each side and a very helpful and cheery flight attendant who reminded me of the character that helps Elle in the movie Legally Blonde, played by Jennifer Coolidge. She pointed out that the plane had many empty seats and we could move around to have our own aisles if we wanted. We kindly declined explaining we planned on watching a movie. The Bischoff cookies were sooo yummy and we had access to text-messaging and a plethora of movies using the Gogo WiFi. Ended up watching Alien Covenant since we talked about the old Alien movies with Marcel’s Mom (Deb Mom) in Austin before we left. Spoiler alert- David’s evil!

Happy passengers on Alaska Airlines

We got Marcel’s monstrous cardboard and tape covered pack from baggage claim and walked out of the airport into the naturally air-conditioned streets of San Diego to catch an Uber.

Cardboard monster and Marcel for scale.

To our surprise and delight a majority of the cabs and Uber cars were Priuses. Priuses! Priusi? Being a Prius owner and former Prius owner ourselves (thanks Hurricane Harvey) seeing a lot of hybrid cars instead of trucks made us happy. Sorry, Jessi, my truck driving bestie! I love you, even if you drive a Ford.

Our Uber driver dropped us off at the El Cajon Mall, we ate Rubio’s Coastal Grill, then walked around and sat on benches waiting for our 3pm bus ride to Campo. The Parkway Plaza Transit Center was conveniently located just outside the south entrance of the mall. Before we knew it we were huddled into a bus with a dozen or so other passengers, mostly older Hispanic mothers with grocery bags, with our packs squished in front of our seats. We made a few stops for local students in their early teens and had a full bus with standing room only until we reached Tecate where most people disembarked. After another 30 minutes or so the bus driver helpfully reminded us about our stop and dropped us off at the Campo general store.

Parkway Plaza Transit Center

Frumpy but happy bus-rider.

The store was filled with many foods, and knowing we wouldn’t have fresh foods for a while we picked up a bag of baby bell peppers, a block of cheese, a tallboy beer, and a can of ravioli because we wouldn’t be able to carry canned food on the trail. The guy at the register was super friendly and we ended up going there a few times either because we forgot to buy something or wanted to make use of their facilities while they were available.

We set up our tent behind the stone store museum, I stuffed the peppers with cheese, we stuffed ourselves, then crawled into our tent.

1868!

Gaskill Bros. Stone Store Museum front.

Baby bell peppers y queso.

Camping behind the rock museum.