Welp, we’ve officially decided how to avoid the worst of winter this year. We’re spending February and March in San Diego! Eric will have a place to kiteboard – as long as he can stand the cold water – and I will be within walking distance of a dog beach, several cute coffee shops, a Cuban bakery called Azucar (Sugar) that makes GF items, and one of the longest piers on the west coast.

Azucar!

Why San Diego, you ask? I’ve been wanting to try out life in SoCal for years. By going as far south as possible and finding a kiteboarding spot, I was able to rope Eric into my plan.

This will be a little different from our previous trips, in that we’ll be taking both dogs (If I haven’t been in touch with you, the puppy is Waffles. He’s 9 months old and very snuggly.) and we’ll be DRIVING ACROSS THE WHOLE COUNTRY to get there. With the dogs. And a bunch of kiteboarding stuff. 40 hours in the car. Who wants to start taking bets on whether we drive or fly home?!

I’ve been making lists of cool things we can do while we’re there for about a month now. It seems like such a fun city! I have been there, but I believe I was maybe 7 years old and it was at the tail end of a 3 week family trip. We stayed with a relative and it was the first time I had gotten lost in a house. Eric has been there once for work, but not to play. It seems like the perfect city. Warm, but not super hot, tons of restaurants and breweries, cliffs that have hidden swings and gorgeous views of the sunset, beaches, kiteboarding, beautiful gardens and parks…we’ll see if I come back.

This week I started research for our road trip out there. Today I plotted out the whole itinerary and found airbnbs for each night of our 8 day journey. What did we do back when we just stayed in boring hotels during trips?! I found the coolest places to stay – fingers crossed I can get them all booked and not get confused on where we are when. One place, for example, has a corral!!!! The doggies will certainly appreciate that after being in the car for days!

It looks like our trip will go about like this:

1. Day 1 – Raleigh to Auburn (where my mom spent some of her early years), then on to Montgomery, AL where we found a gorgeous cabin with tons of windows. About a 9 hour drive.
2. On day two, we have a short drive – only 4.5 hours – to NEW ORLEANS!!! Neither of us have been there, so we’re really excited. We tried to go earlier this year and it just didn’t work out. So we’ll try again! We’ll stay two nights so we have a little time to get to know the city a little.
3. Day 4 – we drive from NOLA to Austin, TX. About 8 hours. I can’t wait for this part of the trip. We’ve been wanting to go to Austin forever. We decided to spend 3 days and 2 nights there. I’ve found some places to hike and explore with the dogs. We’ll need to rest up for the long trip to…
4. El Paso, TX. We’ll start off the drive with an hour trip from Austin to San Antonio. We’ll see the River Walk and the Alamo, then drive another 8 hours to El Paso and our very own corral for the night.
5. Day 8 – Only 5 hours from El Paso to Tucson, AZ where I have some family. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re going to be on the east coast exactly when we’re driving by their house. Stinky. I’m still trying to get in touch with another aunt who lives there. I’d love to see her, especially since she’s about to become a grandmother! I like the idea of showing Eric this part of the world since I have very fond memories of being there both when I was 7 (same LONG trip) and then again around 2002ish.
6. Day 9 – Quick 6 hour drive from Tucson to San Diego…and our new home for two months in Ocean Beach!

Please let us know if you have any thoughts about what we should do in any of these places – or along the drive. For example, I discovered a house made out of beer cans in Houston. Hopefully it survived Harvey, although I can’t imagine it was all that stable. But it’s silly and novel things like that that will make both our drive, and this blog, interesting. Neither Eric nor I are big on road trips, so this will be an experience. Especially with the dogs in tow.

On the way back, we’re thinking of going through Las Vegas (Eric’s never been and I love the spectacle of it all), Denver (where I may be able to finally meet the editor I’ve been working with at Literary Wanderlust), Red Rock Ampitheatre, the WHOLE length of Kansas (which I’ve done before…it’s long), St. Louis, Nashville, Asheville, and home to Raleigh.

That’s it for now! I’ll keep you updated.