Mexico roadtrip: The OC

Our Mexico roadtrip is off to a hectic start, as most of my roadtrips seem to begin. Evan's flight was canceled and its replacement delayed; he could have driven from San Francisco in the same time it took to fly. More problematically, we found our designated vehicle, my family's 1987 Volkswagen Vanagon, to have a completely dead battery. It had been given a clean bill of health (and oil change) by a mechanic a month ago but not driven since. We were able to jump start it, but even after running for half an hour, it would not restart. So we are camping here at my parents house. I have a charger on the Vanagon's battery; it's putting in 2.5 amps, which seems rather high. Hopefully it won't explode. My parents have sort-of offered the use of their (new, leased, four-wheel-drive) Toyota Rav-4. This is sort of tempting, but, then again, going on such a roadtrip with an appropriate vehicle seems like cheating.

Some intended roadtrip destinations:
* Julian
* Anza-Borrego
* Salton Sea mud volcanoes
* Slab City
* Cañon de Guadalupe hot springs
* ???