back to day 4 in San Diego (Mount Laguna)

We arrived at that first outlook on Mount Laguna, heading up into the mountains, and we took pictures of each other and the setting. Across the way there was another outlook, and I saw this white truck with green markings.... and I remember the passing thought that it was some construction guy on his lunch hour, taking in the view.

After we took some more pictures he pulled out and drove away and Virginia asked if I saw the markings on the truck. I had been looking at the vista and paid no attention, and she said it was a border patrol vehicle. I turned around to look at her, puzzling over what she had just said. We were currently north of interstate 8, at least 25 miles north of the border with Mexico, up in the mountains. They patroled this far from the border? Were they looking for someone? Was this a safe place to be? Hmmmm. Assuming a random coincidence we drove on up the mountain, and saw several more border patrol trucks. We decided to be down off this mountain by dark.

On up the mountain we started seeing "cattle on road" signs... big steers with horns were pictured. This was turning out to be a fascinating day. We drove over a cattle guard and then knew they were serious. Never did get to see those steers with big horns, even though we looked and looked.

We hit an elevation of 6,000 feet and saw sandy banks with big rounded boulders of all sizes protruding out of them (and I thought of my old life and three gorgeous big round rocks that I owned called Mexican Pinas)... and I thought again of how beautiful this land was. We seemed to reach the top of the mountain and started down the other side, and the late day light was starting to slant and we agreed that we had better turn and make our way back down with not enough light left in the day to go farther and see what was around the next corner. The adventure wasn't over just yet.