We got all excited last week when we were planning our short visit to San Diego to find Coastal Trailer Villa located only 2 miles away from my sister’s house! What a find, and only $30 a night, right in a major city! Quaint and comfortable! We should have known.

It started poorly and went downhill from there. Not the visit, that was great. It’s always great seeing family. Anyway, we have this GPS system that we nicknamed Betty the Re-Calculating Bitch. You know, when you make a wrong turn, or forget to turn, and she has to build you a new route? Except that we are SURE we can detect a note of sarcasm and resignation when she intones “Re-calculating…..”. So when Betty, with her purring mother-in-law-like voice, leads you to an obscure intersection where there isn’t a single piece of signage, and forces you to make a virtual U-turn onto a narrow side street, then sends you on an immediate left turn down an even tighter side street, and all you can find is a narrow gap in a fence with RV’s behind it, the hair on your neck should stand up. What the hell did I ever do to her that she does THIS to me? Remember, we’re dragging a 36 foot long house with a turning radius of about a mile and a half. We have arrived at Coastal Trailer Villa in San Diego, except not at the main entrance (around the corner and down the street) but at the fire exit. Needless to say, a couple of attempts at entry here results in jammed traffic, a small dent in the port side skirt of the trailer, frazzled nerves of the driver (moi) and a portent of gloom and doom.

We finally get all this sorted out, turned around, and into the main entrance. I felt like I was driving the rig on the Autopia at Disneyland. Remember that one? Little putt-putt cars chugging around a narrow concrete trough with bumpers everywhere? Now imagine something this exact same size and scale turned into an RV park. Then find out YOUR reserved spot is in the middle of one of the rows on one of the “side streets” that once was tight quarters for a single-wide trailer much smaller than us. It took a village, the whole village, to coax that big beast into the spot, and when we slid out the rooms, all 4 of them, we could not only hear the neighbor’s TV, we could feel the vibration of the sound coming out of the speakers. This spot was tighter than new jeans on a supermodel. But we weren’t done yet.

Some of you know we run a couple of businesses on the road. These require internet access and phone contact, in our case cell phone contact. We had neither at Coastal Trailer Villa. Alvin, the owner, happily told us we were camped “right under the wireless antenna, at least it SHOULD be back there by you somewhere”. I’m hoping he wasn’t referring to the pie tin tied to a broomstick we saw in the corner of the lot. Internet 1, Mudd’s 0. Cell service? My phone doesn’t show fractional bars, but it would have needed pretty high precision to detect a signal if there was one. Zip. We were, for all intent and purposes, hermits from the world at Coastal Trailer Villa. All of a sudden the $30 per night looks pretty expensive.

What your cell bars SHOULD look like!

We DID have, as we had hoped, a great visit with family. Starting with Mom and Jay, they FINALLY got to see the rig when we found a way to wedge it onto the dirt at the front of their house on our trip from Laughlin to San Diego. It brought back lots of Mom’s RV memories from years ago. And of course, we spent lots of time with Mary and Jeff, and their new remodel, and their heavy furniture, and their scrap and garbage heap. But mostly with them. Thanks for the great salmon dinner on the deck, we love that deck! And we love the new apartment work downstairs, especially the new island for the kitchen. But one shining memory will be that first night when Frankie and Wally (M&J’s neighbors) hosted us for dinner. Jeff had a big day with the remodel, Mary and Morgan had a HUGE day with a massive garage sale, we had driven 300 miles or so, and we were all dog tired. Frankie and Wally to the rescue. An impromptu bouillabaisse with fresh garden salad and bread did the trick. And we also got to watch Frankie and Wally compete for who could tell the best story of the past year. They are a truly delightful couple, and it was a treasure meeting them. We hope to meet up with them on the road again soon. So we are making them our People of Interest for this blog. Many thanks for the friendship and meal!

Frankie and Wally

And always last, not but not least, here’s Tippy!