The Road Trip to SolidWorks World 2008, San Diego

The windmills on the Tecate Divide, originally uploaded by SolidMuse.

I have arrived in San Diego after about a 6 1/2 hour drive from Phoenix. Not much traffic along I-8 and some interesting sites along the way.

The Imperial Dunes Recreation Area is always fascinating to me. Here are these Sahara Desert like sand dunes just west of Yuma, in California. A very popular spot for those that are into off road vehicles, four wheelers and sand rails.

Then after getting to the west side of the Imperial Valley you hit the mountains that are between the central portion of California and the coast. Very different, big boulder terrain. Some pretty step grades as you go from an elevation of zero feet above sea level to a bit over 4000 ft.

Along the top of this divide, where the Santa Ana winds can really get blowing there are the wind mills on the Tecate Divide. These wind mills are huge and are quite an impressive site as several of them are right on the edge of the highway.

I arrived at the Marriott just after dark. I am glad I got a Garmin GPS this past week. Made the drive into the center of San Diego a breeze. Just follow the directions of the nice voice direction the Garmin gave. Sent me right to the center of town into the Gas Lamp District. The Marriott is pretty easy to find as it is a huge two tower, twenty-something story structure, right next to the Convention Center.

All the SolidWorks Bloggers gathered for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in the Gas Lamp District. It was a great time to meet new friends and renew friendships with the rest of the group. The energy is high among the group as we all are pretty excited to be here in San Diego.

Several of the guys where taking pictures and I expect they will be posted soon on their blogs.

I have some pictures of my trip posted on my SolidWorks World 2008 collection of photos at my Flickr account.

Cheers,

Anna