Driving to California

We left Vancouver on Thursday January 14th!  The drive took 24 hours and included over nights in Medford, OR (10.5 hours from Vancouver) and Kettelman City, CA (8.5 hours from Medford) and finally five hours into Escondido, CA where we checked in at the Welk Resort for our first week.

Overall the car ran beautifully over the roughly 1400 miles or 2300 km’s.  Once we checked in, had lunch and moved our bags into our room we decided to head out for supplies.  On the way to the store the car lost power and we managed to crawl into the mall parking lot and find a spot to park when the Cadillac died.  No worries, a quick call to roadside assistance and a tow truck was on site to take it to the nearest Cadillac dealer, however as it was after 5:00 pm we won’t know until Monday or Tuesday (Monday is Martin Luther King day) what is wrong.  We regularly question the expense of this vehicle (lease) but the service we received so far, combined with covered taxi fares and a free rental vehicle during the repair process, which is completely under warranty by the way, seem to at least justify the monthly cost to us right now.

Situated on 600  plus acres in the Southern California town of Escondido, we were able to secure a 1300 square foot, two bedroom, two bathroom, second story condo for a week.  We booked this on short notice through our Club Intrawest extraordinary escapes program for very few points.  We (surprise) are in an adults only area with community outdoor barbeque, hot tub and pool area.  The property is amazing complete with a Broadway style theatre.  We will be seeing Steel Magnolias later this week (the show currently playing)!

What (working) holiday blog would be complete without a comment about wine?  When we got our supplies at a Safeway (who knew they had them in California) we were able to purchase some wine there.  We picked up a Chateau Ste Michelle for $15.99 and a Beringer Pinot Noir for $10.99, both of which were about half of what we pay for them in Canada.  However, I asked if I could swipe my Canadian Safeway card to which this answer was of course.  This knocked $5.00 and $4.00 more off the price of each bottle making them $10.99 and $6.99 respectively.  We feel like we stole something!

We have conference calls and work to do Monday to Wednesday and it is supposed to rain those days, but we are looking forward to some more adventures towards the end of the week so check back often!

Cheers, Jeff & Tara