It feels weird to be publishing in real time again. We arrived at our rental condo in La Jolla just before 4:00 pm yesterday. We pulled up to the building and I realized something was amiss when I checked our parking instructions, which clearly stated we were to park in the middle spot of the driveway. The only driveway we saw was leading down to an underground parking garage. So we parked on the street (lucky to find a close spot) and went to check things out.
Turns out, we were on the wrong side of the building. We drove around the block, parked in our designated space and found the lockbox with our door key. Then I read the rest of the entry instructions and found we could only enter the building via the door on the other side. So we drove around again and parked so we could unload our luggage and bring it up to the condo. The exterior door was keyed, but the condo door had an electronic lock. Two, actually. One for the handle and one for the deadbolt. Problem was, they time out. So entering the code in succession for both locks and getting the door open took more than a few tries.
It took two trips to bring all of our luggage up and then we drove back around the block again and parked. We were just getting out of the car when I received a text from my husband’s sister. They had arrived and didn’t know how to get into the building. Her entry instructions were much less clear than ours and she was hunting for the lock box on the wrong side of the building while her husband sat in the car blocking the driveway to the underground garage.
I let her into the building and she opened the garage door from inside so he could park the car. Then I showed her where to get the key and helped them bring the luggage up to their condo, which was one floor above ours. They also had an electronic lock on the door and the code was buried in their entry instructions. The rental company provides an app with all of the information, but is apparently pretty inconsistent about how it’s presented.
Nola and her dad needed to shower off sand from the beach, so my husband’s sister and I walked to a nearby grocery store to get supplies for dinner and breakfast. I managed to get us slightly lost locating the store. It’s actually quite close, but the roads are curved and there’s a museum in the way of the most direct path. Our landing at San Diego proved to be a bit rocky, but hopefully that’s disaster proofed us for the rest of the trip.