Meeting up in San Diego for some serious carbo loading

Chris, Eric, & Peter Sr.  - damn, we're old

So, after six long months of waiting, the trip has finally started!  Peter Sr., Peter Jr., Chris and I all flew from Jacksonville to San Diego today with a layover in Atlanta.  Flights were easy and on time, and we arrived at the downtown San Diego Hampton Inn at about 6pm.  A half hour later, Jay and Isaac arrived and we all quickly headed out to find some chow.

The crew in line at Filippi's

After walking about 6 blocks to San Diego's "Little Italy" area, we bee-lined for the most unassuming restaurant on the strip - Filippi's Pizza Grotto.  You enter Filippi's through an Italian market and, well, basically stand in a long line to get seated in the restaurant.  We had a tip that this was THE place in Little Italy - and the crowd seemed to indicate as much.  So we waited 25 minutes, got our table and proceeded to order WAY more beer, pasta, lasagna, beer, veal parmesan, antipasto, beer, pizza, and sausage than we could eat. It was delicious.  Afterwards, we walked off dinner, headed back to the hotel - and crashed!

The Last Supper?  Before Mexico!

So that's the exciting blog post for tonight.  Tomorrow, we get picked up by the Chris Haines crew and drive down to Ensenada with all our gear, bikes, trucks, trailers, etc.  Then Thursday morning, we start the ride.  I can't wait.  In the meantime, as promised, here is the link to follow us in Real Time every day: Baja Spot Tracker (I'll make sure Peter turns it on tomorrow morning!)  Be sure to check often to see how we're progressing.  Of course, I will update the blog every night too.  Well, it's 10:30 here (1:30 in the Ayem East Coast time) and I'm exhausted.  But we're almost to Baja!