Moving to Costa Rica, July 19, 2025

I had the idea to start writing a journal about our trip to and time in Costa Rica, so here is my first entry:

Today, we set out from Tucson and drove to a hotel in El Cajon near San Diego. My dad had suggested we make this a two day trip, which I was very thankful for, as that reduced the stress of having to get to the airport in a single day. So we are just going to the hotel today, and then we'll go to the airport tomorrow.

My Dad drove us and Mom all together in his truck with our bags. We plan to use the Tijuana Airport to fly to Costa Rica via Mexico City. The reason we did not want to go through an American airport was because Sophie did not trust American TSA with all of the nonsense going on right now, since we will be bringing our medications. We were originally, planning to  drive down to Hermosillo to use that airport, but my dad had the smart idea to go to Tijuana, since it is much closer to the border, and much safer that driving through northern Mexico.

Additionally, my parents found this thing called the Cross Border Express (CBX), which is a land tunnel from the US side to the Mexico side, so we planned to use this, as it seemed like a very convenient way to get to the airport.

It was a long 6 or so  hour drive, but it was nice to take it as a family. I was reminded of the many family road trips we had taken over the years, but this one was very different, as Sophie and I would not be coming back to Tucson after, at least for quite a while.

We finally got to the hotel, and it was ok, but, if I am being honest, it was a bit sketchy. The room was fairly nice though, as it was a two room suite, though one room had two fridges and the other had none for some reason. Also, the bathroom kind of smelled like a sewer, which was not very pleasant.

We had dinner that night at a really good Middle Eastern Mediterranean place called Mr. Shawarma, I had a falafel wrap in saj bread, which is like a tortilla. Sophie had the same thing, but in a pita. The food was very good! They had these really cool local sodas in the fountains too. I had the Agave Vanilla Cream Soda.

With dinner done, we went back to the hotel to get some rest before the big day tomorrow.

Us on the road