The Nasty Shock!

Checking into this hotel had a "different feel" than the others we had stayed in. I went to bed and had a wrestless sleep the night before, weird dreams and woke up tired. I told Scootard that I didn't want to stay in this particular hotel again.  It just didn't feel right.

We started our morning in full anticipation of having a great day.  I was packing up things and Scootard went down to the car to get a head start on loading some of things I had packed.  He soon returned with what appeared to be our insurance documents in his hand.

What!!!??  Go figure!

Needless to say, I started snapping these pictures for our insurance company back in Canada....

The glass had been shattered into a gazillion pieces and it was going to take some doing to get it all out.
Of course the hotel didn't want to be responsible for anything.

I was NOT happy......:-(.  Poor Scootard was on the phone trying to get some police officer to answer the phone.  We held on forever before someone actually took the call.  She turned out to be no help whatsoever and merely gave us another number to call.

 I made the suggestion that we make our way to the station to file a report.  We had already spoken to ICBC (Insurance Company of British Columbia) and they had set up a claim file for us and made recommendations.  However, by it being the weekend, it was going to be tough finding someone to take us on such a short notice.

Low and behold...the station was CLOSED!  what!!??  How do you close a police department???  On the weekend no less in a big city like San Diego??   I thought I was back in BC.....

Well since this was a wash, we just decided to let it go.  The cost of the repair was less than our deductible.  And upon careful inspection, we discovered that nothing was missing except a blanket that Scootard had been given a few months earlier for Christmas.  The food was still there, the car had not been gone through at all.  Just a warm, fluffy blanket was missing.  I began to feel sorry for the person who needed it....:-(.  I had the strong sense that they were sorry, but did what they had to to stay warm that night.

We carried on down the road and tried to make the best out of a bad start of our day.

The flowers on the side of the highway were a pleasant sight.  It was now much later than we had planned to be in San Diego and our next destination was many miles ahead of us still.

But we couldn't go on without a window for the entire weekend.  So, after calling all over San Diego we found this place which happen to be a warehouse as well.  yay!

We got there at 1:00 and they had us up and ready to go by 2:30.

I was also very happy that they gave a warranty on their work.

We were on our way! The window was repaired and it worked!

There is a structure similar to this in Paris called The Louvre.

We decided that we needed to get going and was going along pretty good until we hit this.It had us crawling forever.....:-(.

Finally, we got through the "bottle neck" situation and decided to do a little R&R on the way.....

We passed through this little place......

and ran across this shop that had all manner of wrought iron gates, doors and tiles.  The owner told us that he had been there for 7 years and told us when we had a lot of money to come back and see him!  Hahaha.  Now, I knew we looked "relaxed", but I didn't think we look THAT bad!  haha

Now, you gotta know how hard it was me not to picture some of this stuff in my garden...but I know, I know!  I can't stick everything I see in there.

but he was kind enough to let us look around before we left.......:-)

I think they will fit right nicely in my dream home, on my dream property and the entrance of my dream island....:-)

Ever think about making a gazebo out of old doors?  I have....hummm.

We left and continued on to this little shop and I had to snap a picture of this little thing outside

and this little thingee inside.....This one is green and the one across the room from it was dark blue and white.

and I had to laugh at the name of the place.....but I understood why he named it that seeing what he was selling inside and out.

It was a bit of a hodge podge of stuff that looked like it was from the flower children era......:-)

 ok, now we really ain't make any progress here.  Time to hit the road again!

don't you just love these flowers?  I think they are beautiful, but I don't know what they are.

 I was trying to get a shot of this house that looked like an igloo sitting behind this sign, but the sign was in the way.

and get a load of this one!  A castle right on the corner...

 Scoooooterrrr!!!

These particular flowers seem to thrive here.  They are called "Bird of Paradise".

 We put a few miles behind us and I began to notice that the velvet hills that we passed on the way through the first time were starting to turn brown.....:-(.

It was spotty for the rest of the trip.  Some where brown some were still green but not many....

 The day was starting to wind down for us.  Scootard was getting a little tired and so was I. We headed for Laguna Beach anyway.....:-).

It seemed that even the birds were trying to find somewhere to roost for the night.

and the sunset was magnificent!

and peaceful even though the temperature was starting to drop quite quickly.

We stopped in a local Starbucks to book a reservation for the night and have some coffee being finishing the last leg of the trip for the day.

and it didn't take long to go to sleep after having settled in for the evening.  It had been a very long day...

Stay tuned!