I have been going to Arizona for rugby at least once a year since I was a freshman in college. While these trips often include an epic party with some of my favorite desert dwellers, it takes a lot of hugs and alcohol to negate the misery of a rugby game played at high noon in hundred degree weather and twelve hours of cumulative driving across a landscape that is best described as “beige”. Couple this with my general feelings of rage toward the “Zonies” who migrate to San Diego in droves starting in June to crowd my beaches and drive poorly around my neighborhood until well into September, and you can see why heading in an eastward direction on the I-8 past Mission Valley is something I turn my nose up at like an elderly La Jolla home owner.

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