Let’s Get This Show on the Road
We left Celina, TX on Tuesday, August 02 en route to San Diego, CA for our cousin’s (Bree and Jared) wedding.
Leaving Dallas, our plan was to make it to Las Cruces, NM by nightfall for a quick hike in White Sands National Monument Wednesday morning. We also booked tickets to go to SkyNights at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter (https://skycenter.tix.com/ScheduleCalendar.aspx?OrgNum=3087) north of Tucson, AZ that same afternoon. Unfortunately, timing our trip through New Mexico and Arizona in the middle of summer created issues with heat and monsoons. When all was said and done we weren’t able to do either due to high temperatures and rain storms. At that point we opted to look for a place in El Paso, TX the first night as it was the most direct path west.
A quick search on @airbnb landed us a one bedroom townhouse with a shared kitchen that turned out to be a great spot for a single night stay. Serendipitously, El Paso happens to be the location of Fort Bliss where our cousin Travis is stationed. We sent Travis a last minute text and were able to hook up with him for dinner at Kiki’s (http://www.kikisrestaurant.com/).
We stayed at another @airbnb location in Tucson, AZ Wednesday evening and made the final push into San Diego on Thursday. We didn’t see a lot while driving west along highway 8 except for tumbleweeds and sand dunes as far as the eye could see. ~150 miles from San Diego we started to get hungry and the benefit of having access to a wireless network meant we could Yelp to find a lunch stop, which is what we did. The quick search led us to Taqueria La Pasadita in Seeley, CA.
While eating lunch I had my first introspective moment of the trip. Here we were as far south as we could be in the United States, feet from the Mexican border, eating food most likely served by descendants of immigrants. It was these same immigrants who served their food to our military stationed at Naval Air Facility (NAF) El Centro. Various squadrons like HSC-4 Black Knights, VFA-192, VMA-231, and even The Blue Angels had eaten here (and some had posted positive comments on Yelp).
I was reminded about our upcoming presidential election. What hit home was that our country might elect a president with a platform that limits, perhaps prevents, immigration. Oh, the irony. This military force, led by our country’s president, co-existing with an immigrant population that some would wish weren’t allowed to be here.
I could only imagine that proud moment when some young cadet slapped that sticker in the taqueria window. Was it in support of the people that cooked his/her meal that day?
BTS