We woke up and hit the road, knowing we had over 450 miles of President’s Day traffic to get through to get home. Around mid-morning, we pulled into Encinitas to have breakfast. While waiting at the stop light, I noticed our car was literally smoking.

We pulled into a small, nice cafe, and figured we’d eat while the car cooled down. We called Cho for advice on what to do. He suggested we pour some water into the radiator, and immediately drive to a gas station to get it looked at.

As it was a holiday, and also we couldn’t drive far, we pulled into the first gas station, where an extremely helpful and friendly gentleman behind the counter advised us on what coolant to purchase, and helped us out. Our car was smoking again, despite only driving about a mile to the gas station. But once the coolant was in, our car was fine- except that it was leaking fluids slowly.

Hitting the road, we got slown down by horrendous LA (and outskirts traffic). 4 hours later we had reached the grapevine outside LA. The car was smoking again so we put in fluids and continued. We repeated this a bunch of times throughout the drive home.

After Highway 5, we stopped at the 152 junction for some dinner and a final pouring of liquids into the car. This enabled us to finally get home, pretty exhausted.

Despite being tired, we both thought the trip to San Diego was wonderful.

Some random musings following this trip:

• I’ve finally driven the entire length of Highway 1. It’s not terribly exciting in SoCal; in fact, I hope never to have to drive it again.
• This is it for California lighthouses for me. It’s time to shift over to Washington state.
• By rough estimate, I’ve driven 1005 miles of California coast. This includes most of the Lost Coast (not all accessible), and includes the CA-OR border as well as the Mex-CA border. That’s the entire California coastline.
• It’s amazing how many times we’ve gone off the roads, over the years, into little nooks and crannies just to try to see the entire coastline.
• Perhaps one of these years I’ll walk/camp the entire Lost Coast.
• Now that I’ve seen it all, the Mendocino coast is definitely my favorite part of the state’s coastline.
• Southern California feels like a different state (if not country) altogether. The weather is totally different, and people seem totally different. Not in a bad way different, just not like NorCal. Much slower, much more tanned, much more laid back. And yet, having to cope with horrendous traffic and perpetually hot weather, even in the Winter. Though not cut out for me, I can see why people- especially those who love the sun and warm outdoors- love SoCal.
• The Southern California coastline is very sandy, full of beaches, and is more oriented to people spending time there as compared to the northern coast.

We woke up late on Valentine’s Day morning. I got us some coffee and small cakes from the hotel lobby, and we made our way out to Coronado to drive the final stretch of California coast, leading to Border Field State Park.

The SW most park in the country

I wanted to not only see the last of the CA coast, but also to get out to the Southwestern most point in the entire country.

We pulled into the park, and in the 78 degree heat, walked west for a mile to get out to the coast. From the coast, it was a half mile south to reach the California-Mexico border. At the border is literally a wooden fence, I would guess about 10-12 feet high. We saw a couple dozen people on the other side and waved to them. It would have been tempting to cross or at least linger at the border, but a patrol guy, somewhat angrily demanded we back off the border. Thankfully he didn’t show up until a minute or two after we reached the fence, so we were able to enjoy reaching the Southwestern most point.

A lighthouse and stadium in the distance on the Mexican side	The end of the trail to the coast	Still have a half mile south to go
Friendly folks in Mexico	I’m at the Southwestern most point	Seems so easy to get into Mexico (or vice versa)

View from Coronado beach; the two Point Loma lighthouses can be seen

Hotel Del Coronado

We made the trek back to the car and headed back to Coronado, where we ate lunch at the Hotel Del Coronado. The food was amazing! We finally cooled down, and eventually returned to our hotel.

We stepped out to see the roof of our hotel, after having heard much about it. It was pretty impressive. There was a gym, an outdoor pool, outdoor bar, and lots of places to sit or lounge and just look out at San Diego.

Picking a different Italian restaurant this time, we had another great dinner at the Gaslamp. We strolled around the quarters stopping by various shops and galleries, and eventually turned in for the night.