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We saw this today in Calexico!

Fun fact: El Centro is the largest lowest city in the United States. It’s official elevation is 42 feet below sea level, and some parts are even lower, as evidenced by this grain tower on the edge of town:

That mark is probably around 80 feet above ground level!

One advantage: there’s a lot more oxygen here than we’re used to breathing at 3,300 feet in Montana (and previous to that, 5,200 feet in Colorado). As I’ve been exercising, I’ve found I have a lot more energy. Sadly, I suspect my body will acclimate over time, and my red blood cell count will drop, but for now I’m enjoying my ability to run almost a mile without even breathing heavily.

Speaking of sea level, we haven’t been to the ocean for almost a year. I love the Pacific, and we were excited to see it again. We drove to San Diego and enjoyed an afternoon at Balboa Park, then headed over to Sunset Cliffs.

It was sort of comical– but mostly frustrating– to learn that the Sunset Cliffs are very cliffy, and don’t have an easy way down to the actual beach. We hiked for a bit, enjoying the view, and only on our way back to the car did we notice a long set of stairs in the distance. Oh well; that’ll be something for next time. For now, we had fun seeing our old friend the Pacific.

Today we had some business in San Diego, so we headed “across the mountains” (as they say here in “the valley”). It was 95 when we left at 9am, and 65 when we arrived in the city. What a gorgeous day to do some sightseeing! At the recommendation of many friends, we headed over to Balboa Park. It was a lot of fun to just wander the expansive area, looking at the plants and architecture, and talking to some of the street vendors.

There’s a large botanical area, and we were surprised at how many cacti are sprouting flowers. I guess this is the time of year for it. In almost every case, the pretty flowers were attached to very sharp and nasty-looking plants…

Pepper wanted to find out how sharp one of them was…

… and ended up with a tiny splinter from one of the spines. She could hardly see it, and didn’t have a way to dig it out of her finger, so she broke off a big spine from another cactus and used it as a needle to pry out the splinter. Clever girl.

Perhaps the most fun was at the annual Cactus and Succulent Show, which just happened to be today. There was a huge area where vendors were selling– you guessed it– cacti and succulent plants. Table after table was lined with hundreds of varieties of desert plants.

It was really amazing, and we ended up dropping sixty bucks on a bunch of little cacti for our apartment. Something to remember the desert by, even as we were basking in the (relatively) cool blue skies of San Diego.

San Diego has a dive restaurant called Hodad’s in Ocean Beach. We were introduced to it back in 2015, and fell in love with their burgers. They’re not only amazingly tasty, but they’re probably the messiest burgers I’ve ever eaten. In 2022, we returned with Kyra and enjoyed not only the burgers but the incredible shakes.

And today we were back. Since those days, they’ve opened a second restaurant downtown, and it just happened to be a short distance from our destination. We simply had to stop in.

The downtown restaurant was a little “nicer” than the original Ocean Beach location, so it didn’t have quite the dive feel to it. Also, there wasn’t a line of people going around the block waiting to get in, which was probably a good thing. The burgers are still awesome.

And the shakes? Still incredible.

It’s fun having favorite restaurants scattered around the country. With our stops at Maggiano’s and Cheba Hut back in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, I felt like Hodad’s completed the trifecta. And I’m hoping we can find a few more spots to fall in love with.

Technically it’s still spring, but apparently the sun didn’t get that memo here in El Centro. Our car reported 109 degrees (notice it’s not even the “hot” part of the day!)

Pepper and I do our workout in the morning, before it gets too hot, and we decided to take a dip in the pool next to the gym.

Even before 9am it’s in the 90s, so the cool water feels amazing. But we have a lot to do each day, so our pool time is limited to about five minutes. Then, cooled off, we can get going for the day.

We also noticed that in every parking lot, if there’s a tree or the shadow of a building, the parking spots in the shade are always filled. No one cares if they can park near the store– the important thing is to be in the shade! We’re learning that one.

It’s definitely been interesting adjusting to this extreme heat, and hearing all the locals tell us how “ahh, this is nothing”. Luckily our apartment, our car, and all the buildings we visit have air conditioning, so we’re getting by just fine. We’ll keep learning ways to beat the heat.

Everyone knows I love Rosa’s. Although I’m missing their pizza, today Pepper and I found Rosa’s here in town:

We chatted with the owner, whose mom opened the restaurant almost forty years ago. I’m going start eating Mexican food– which I generally don’t like– and I might as well start here. At least the name’s a good one!

Today we had some stuff to do in Calexico, which is a small town that straddles the Mexican border. We stopped to take a look at what the locals simply call The Wall.

That’s the border, of course, and it runs along the length of the town. I don’t actually know how far outside of town it extends. Just to the south is Mexicali, a huge metropolis of at least a million people.

Since it’s a Friday, everyone knows to avoid Cesar Chavez Boulevard, which is the road that crosses The Wall. On Fridays, many of the locals– thousands of them, in fact– head south to Mexico along that road. We were heading north and saw the traffic lined up in the other direction for miles:

On Sunday night, they all come back across the border. Most have jobs in the United States (where wages are higher), but family and friends in Mexico, so it’s just part of life to go back and forth.

Despite all the media hubbub and political furor surrounding the border, we’ve found that everyone here is pretty chill. Of course there are a lot of Hispanics in the town, and just about everyone– Mexican and American alike– is bilingual. But everyone we’ve met has been respectful, friendly, and just living their lives. Surely there are some bad actors we don’t see (a few of our new friends work for the Border Patrol and have stories) but overall I’ve been really impressed with how everyone just gets along and works together.

We made it!

We finished our second week in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) and left Utah for the “field”. We’ve really enjoyed spending time with three other senior missionary couples, and after many comments about my amazing ties (all of which are the Jerry Garcia brand) I decided to give each of the men a tie from my ample collection. They were thrilled and insisted we pose for a group photo.

If nothing else, I’m spreading the good word of Jerry Garcia ties.

After our last morning of training, Pepper and I hopped in our (fully loaded) car and drove to Las Vegas. It’s about halfway between the MTC and our destination in El Centro, so it made a good stopping point. More importantly, there were two restaurants I really wanted to visit. The first was Maggiano’s, a fabulous Italian restaurant I’ve missed greatly. We had dinner there.

The next day we stopped for lunch at Cheba Hut, a Colorado classic and still my favorite sandwich chain on earth.

I admit it felt a little weird to stroll The Strip wearing our missionary tags while we were approached multiple times by scantily-clad women looking to pose for a photo, and passing billboards and ads for strip shows and call girls. I guess Vegas will be Vegas.

Then we headed south. As we crossed into Arizona and then southeast California, the landscape became increasingly flat and desert-ey.

Eventually we came to an honest-to-goodness desert: the Imperial Sand Dunes. We stopped for a few minutes to enjoy walking barefoot through the super fine (and surprisingly cool) sand.

That evening we arrived at our new apartment in El Centro. The church arranges housing for all missionaries, young and old, so it was nice to be able to move right in. Since we didn’t really bring all that much– just a few outfits and some computer equipment– the move-in was quick and easy.

The next day we went shopping to get groceries and a few other essentials for the apartment. I found a sale and bought a handful of short-sleeved dress shirts (there weren’t any to be had in Montana). The temperature was 101 degrees that day. Even when it’s hot, it’s important to look cool.

Everyone we met kind of laughed and told us “this is nice weather… wait until it gets really hot!” When it’s 101 and people are joking about how much hotter July will be, I’m not quite sure what to say. Uhh, thank goodness for air conditioning?

Today at church we met about fifty people, all of whom were super friendly and introduced themselves, and all of whom we’ll probably have to ask to repeat their names next week. We also met some young adults we’ll be working with, learned about the institute classes we’ll be teaching, had lunch with a bunch of younger missionaries, scouted out new housing for a set of missionaries in a neighboring town, participated in several group chats, planned a lesson, cleaned a new apartment that’ll be used by other missionaries, and did our level best to figure out just what the heck we’re supposed to be doing for the next year. It’s a little overwhelming, but I know we’ll figure it out and have a grand time doing it.

We’ve finished our first week at the Missionary Training Center (MTC)! It’s been an interesting (and fun) experience. When we showed up on Monday, we met with all the other “senior” missionaries who were training that week. There were around ninety of us, and we posed for a big group photo:

It’s been really cool seeing all these older couples willing to leave behind their homes, kids, grandkids, and everything else to serve a mission for a year or two. We’ve been able to enjoy lessons and lunches with many of them, getting to know their stories. I was counting how many people told us “surely you’re too young to be serving a senior mission!” but stopped after a while because so many people said it. In truth, we’re probably ten years younger than the next-youngest couple. I guess that makes us the junior seniors. It’s a strange feeling sometimes.

Also on the first day, we received our name tags. That made us feel official.

The MTC is set up sort of like a college campus, and not only do all the buildings look alike (light brown brick) but they have amazing and memorable names like “S1” and “T3”. After a few days we managed to figure out where most of the important buildings are.

It’s tradition to stand in front of the wall-sized world map and point to your mission assignment, so Pepper and I did that.

Every day was filled with classes where we talked about life as a missionary, how to effectively serve and teach people, and the sorts of things we might encounter. We were put into a small group called a “district”– four couples in all– and had most of our classes together. Like us, all of them are assigned to teach classes on their missions, so we have a common purpose. That said, all of us have very different circumstances: one couple is going to Romania where their area of responsibility covers four countries, another will be working in a building dedicated to classes where they’ll have their own private offices, and the last couple will be working to establish a class group in their area. It’s pretty cool to see the wide variety in mission service, even amongst a group with the same “titles”, so to speak.

Probably one of the best things about being at the MTC is seeing a thousand younger missionaries everywhere. They’re attending classes just like we are, although obviously theirs have a slightly different focus. Many are receiving language training for two to five weeks– we met and chatted with young missionaries heading to France, Canada, Suriname, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and a dozen other countries. Of course many others were going to less exotic places like… Indiana. You can definitely sense their excitement, mixed with the nervousness of being away from home for the first time, or being so far from home, or both. I’m inspired by these brave young men and women.

One of the highlights of our week was attending the Taylorsville Temple open house (it’s scheduled to open in two weeks) and seeing our friend and former seminary student there. Sister Hammack is serving her mission in Salt Lake City, and she happened to have an assignment to work at the open house for an afternoon. It’s so awesome to see her working hard and loving her mission service.

It’s been a busy week, to be sure, but also one filled with uplifting, spiritual experiences and a gaggle of new friends. I’m already loving mission life.

Today is Monday, which of course means the Mahjongg Gang is playing at Rosa’s. And, as I’ve done for several years now, I joined them. I played a few hands and won a few quarters.

Afterward, we all enjoyed some pizza together and then I switched tables to play a few board games with my other group of friends.

When the games ended, we said our goodbyes. For years it’s been so much fun hanging out with the older and younger crowds, laughing through a few hours of fun and friendly competition, and enjoying some awesome pizza. I’m going to miss all of these yahoos, although both the Mahjongg games and the board games will certainly continue without me. In a year I’ll be back to enjoy it all again.