As many of you know, we attend a photography convention, WPPI, in Las Vegas every year. This year we decided to take a quick vacation with a few other wedding photographers (Jodi and Corina) in San Diego prior to the convention and then road trip it from San Diego to Las Vegas in a minivan named Markquel. Be sure to watch the video of Markquel at the bottom of the post for a full rundown of the minivan fun.

The first thing we did when we arrived in San Diego was eat (duh) at Lucha Libre – a taco place near the airport – it was soooo good. After that we just started exploring. We drove to La Jolla and saw Sea Lions, drove around on Coronado Island (there are some of the CUTEST houses here) and then checked into our hotel, Gas Lamp Plaza. It was originally built in 1913 and still has marble walls and amazing architecture. (There is a cell phone photo of the hall way somewhere below). Once we were all settled in we grabbed some dinner (which actually ended up being a giant loaf of garlic bread coated in cheese followed by chocolate fondue) and then headed to bed.

On the second day we explored around and found some great boutiques, gorgeous wall murals and succulents EVERYWHERE. The weather allows for them to grow outdoors all year around so naturally we were super jealous and more than half the photos we took were of succulents. Ahhh, well. We had lunch in Balboa Park and walked around there as well and saw some amazing architecture and paintings. Then it was off to do a styled shoot at La Jolla Cove with a custom hand-dyed dress from Coastal Knot (more on that tsunami and bird poop filled adventure coming soon).

Day three we stopped by the San Diego Zoo for the morning and tried to cure Jana’s fear of snakes. It didn’t work, but we did get to see most of the zoo – a lot of it is under construction, we’d love to go back once the construction is finished to see what it looks like! After the zoo, it was time to move on from San Diego to stay at a winery in Temecula for a night. We made it just in time to see the sunset and go to a few different wine tastings have dinner and head to bed, we had our long drive to Vegas coming up the next day.

We got up early the next morning, had the most AMAZING breakfast at Penfold’s Cafe and Bakery and hit the road! We made a few pit stops a long the way to sightsee – a ghost town (Nelson Ghost Town), a random strip of desert to film Markquel’s video, the CA-NV state line for a quick photo shoot and then the grocery store to stock up for our Vegas adventures. We had a great few days just relaxing and visiting a new part of the country with some amazing, talented, hilarious and sweet ladies. We can’t wait to do another road trip next year. If you have suggestions on where we should roadtrip to Las Vegas from, we’d love to hear them!

*Note – there are cell phone photos mixed in with actual camera photos 😉

Markquel the Minivan from Magnolia Photography NC | SC on Vimeo.