Day 16 to 18 - Casa Grande, AZ to San DIego, CA

We spent a few more days in Casa Grande before heading to San Diego this morning. Before leaving we had to suffer through several Happy Hours, but I’m working hard to accept this challenge. Dinners prepared by our hosts were excellent and included a best ever shrimp scampi.

Two days ago I attempted to play pickle with our hostess. Don’t know what pickle ball is? The court is one fourth the size for a tennis court, paddles are smaller than a tennis racket and larger than a ping pong paddle, the ball is a wiffle ball a little larger than a baseball and scoring is similar to tennis. At 7-3 in the second game I charged to net to get a drop shot. Being slightly off balance gravity took over and I crashed the net. Both knees and two fingers scrapped and a nice cut on my forehead. A day later a large bruise appeared on the right side of my chest. Today I noticed my thighs are a little sore. NO MORE PICKLE BALL.

The drive over today was pretty easy. Get on Interstate 8 and stay there. Along the way we passed through Dateland, Arizona, a town neither of us had heard of. Turns out General Patton had two desert training camps there during WW2 and it was also the location of a POW camp for Italians. Lunch was Burgers and Beer in El Centro, gas was $4.39 for regular and San Diego was cold.

After checking in we walked around Old Town San Diego and finished off the day with a Mexican dinner. 355 miles today.