Room With A View

Howdy, folks!

Hope your Saturday is going great so far.  Join in on our blog hop, called Saturday Sensational Social.  You can find the linky down below. Just enter your blog where it says "You are next....click here."  Hope to see ya hoppin' blogs with me!

For today's post, I'm revisiting memory lane.  This time, we are going to Imperial Beach, California.

My mom, Grandma and I would go to San Diego every 3 months to see our rheumatologist at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, CA.  We always made it into a little "girls get-away" and leave the hubbies behind to fend for themselves (what a scary thought!) for a few days.  I loved our little trips.  I'd be working hard and would need a break from life for awhile.  Being at the beach, looking at the waves and how the sea just stretches on to infinity, was always very relaxing for me.

I would always book our rooms at the same place each time: Pacific Shores Inn, almost right on the beach.  I always got great prices at Hotels.com or Travelocity.  For this particular trip, we wanted something different.  Oh, boy, did I get us something different!  I booked a room that stated online how it overlooked the ocean and it was in Imperial Beach, CA.  No prob, I thought.  It can't be that far from La Jolla, where our doctor's appointments were.

I couldn't have been MORE wrong about a statement!  We drove and drove AND drove for a total of 8 hours (from Yuma to San Diego it's about a 4 hour drive) trying to find this motel!  We kept going south....in fact, so south we almost were to the Mexican border.  After a few million wrong turns, we finally found the Sea Coast motel.  It didn't look too bad.  Here's 2 pictures:

We pull into the driveway and Grandma and I went to check-in.  They had originally put us in a room with one bed, overlooking the garden.  We knew that wouldn't work!  One bed, three people?  I don't think so.  They put us in another room that still had just one bed, but it also had a pull out bed.  AND, it overlooked the ocean!!!  You can't beat that!  So we took that room and when we got back out to the parking lot, Mom had just parked.  We got out our luggage and carted everything up some stairs and down a very narrow hallway.  You could smell the ocean in the air.  I hoped we had a good view!
We put the key into the lock and opened the door to this view.....

Our mouths hung down in complete shock.  Never had we come close to having a room right ON the ocean!  How rad is that????  We immediately dropped the luggage and went out to the patio.  I took more pictures off our patio.

Isn't this cool?!  It was almost worth the 8 hour drive to get here.  And we were quite some distance from where our doctor's appt was.  Oh, well, Grandma's Honda Civic got excellent mileage.  We were getting hungry, so we left our terrific room and went to the car to get something to eat.  When we got out to the car, it had a flat tire on the passenger rear tire.  How did this happen so fast?  Mom inspected the tire and found a nail in it.  She must have run over it in the parking lot somewhere.  She took out the cell phone to call road service.  None of us could handle changing the tire because of our arthritis and inability to get down on the ground and get back up without having to call the fire dept. for assistance!

The road service guy came and we opened the trunk to where the compact spare was.  He took the spare out and to our horror, THAT tire was flat, too!  The road service guy said there was a Discount Tire store just down the road from the motel.  He put the flat spare tire on and said it would be OK to drive it to the tire place.  Mom was very skeptical and was afraid it would hurt the rim.  He kept assuring her that it was OK.  The road service guy left and we got into the Honda and Mom went to the end of the parking lot, got out on the street and stopped at a curb.  There was so much rubbing on the rim, she was afraid if she kept on, it would damage the tire.
Out came the cell phone again and Mom called road service back. They said they would be here in about 20 minutes.

Mom had parked the car by this little strip mall and Grandma and I were getting our eyes full of this surfer guy who was changing out of his wet suit and into regular clothes.  At least we had entertainment!  20 minutes came and went and Mom was back on the horn with road service.  They said the guy is on his way.  From where? Maine?  So we continue to wait. What else can we do?  Finally, we see a flatbed tow truck coming.  Yay!

The tow truck parks in front of us and a Mexican guy jumps out.  Really nice guy.  He loads Grandma's car onto the bed of the truck and we figure out if we all are gonna fit in the front seat of that truck.  My guess was no. So I said, "I can walk there."  Grandma said SHE could walk there...the Mexican guy put an end to our discussion by saying that nobody can walk there, it's too far away.  That stupid road service guy lied to us by saying the tire store was a few blocks away!

OK, so now we know we have to fit into that truck some how!  Grandma was the first one in, then mom, and finally me.  I had a real problem with closing the damn door.  Mom kept saying, "just close the door!"  Well, excuse me if I want to still keep my foot!  Grandma was practically sitting on the tow truck guy's lap (thank God he was so skinny!) and the gear shifter was between her legs.  Mom was smashed against Grandma and I was smashed against the door.  There was some seriously heavy praying going in that truck at the moment!  Like, "please keep this door closed!"  The truck driver kept getting phone calls and he had 3 phones clipped on him.  The one phone must not be working right as he kept hitting it against the steering wheel.  He did that three times and finally said, "why can't I get phones that work?"  LOL!

We get to the tire place and I immediately open the door and what a breath of fresh air that was!  I could breathe again!  I wasn't smashed against Mom or the door anymore.  AND, I still could keep both legs!  What we must have looked like from the road!  We thanked the driver and he motored off into the sunset.  Meanwhile, we waited at least 45 minutes for the guy to get to our car.  He said he would have us out of there within the hour....because that is when they closed!  We hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we all were starved.  Mom and I are diabetics and shouldn't go too long in between meals.  You can see how good we are at managing our health!!!

The car was finished and we drove to a Subway and took subs back to our room.  I just kept looking at the view.  Incredible!

Here is my mamma, outside enjoying the fresh ocean air.  The next photo is my mom and Grandma on the patio.

The next photo is my favorite of this batch.  It shows Grandma on her fold-out bed.  She kept insisting that SHE slept there, mom and I could take the bed.  After a night of sleeping folded up like a taco, she sure regretted taking that bed!!

Isn't she a hoot?  Gotta love motel fold-out beds.  Next time we'll bring an air mattress bed!!!  The last picture is of my mom, very excited about her new purse.  Every trip, she got a new purse.  Grandma would shake her head in surprise over every purse.  "What do you need so many purses for?"  If Grandpa were alive, he'd certainly put his two cents in, too!  He's probably say, "You can only carry one at a time" or something to that effect.

Gosh, I sure do miss my mom.  She had a grin that could light up the whole room.  And she would get so excited about things, you just loved doing things for her.  She appreciated everything and everyone so much.

We finished the rest of our trip without hitch, thank goodness.  But it sure was funny with imagining the four of us squeezed into the front seat of that truck.  And Grandma practically on top of his lap.  And him hitting his phones against the steering wheel!!  Too, too funny!

Well, I hope you all have a blessed day.  My moral of the day: appreciate everyone in your life.  You just don't know how long you will have them.

God bless,
Until next post,

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