Day 16: Phoenix - Carlsbad

The majority of today was spent driving south-west back towards California, and as this was to be our longest drive we started early (about 9) on the road and had few stops before arriving on the coast at Carlsbad. Our single larger stop was for lunch, having just passed the border with Arizona (over the Colorado River).
We arrived in Carlsbad about 3:30 and sorted out our bags so they were suitably packed in our rooms before we went to look around the town itself. We first found the beach, and finally a sensible temperature: about 20 degrees C. We thought we may even bee able to see a strange Phenomenon some call rain (what is this unknown force?). We proceeded to look around the main shopping areas before having Fish and Chips at the Beach side Restaurant.
Finally we retired to our beds after a long but relatively uninteresting journey of many miles.