Call us lucky. Just a few days prior to our arrival in La Jolla, California, the nearby mountains had been besieged by frigid temps and sleet. Not cool, or literally, quite cool. However, by the time we arrived all was sunny and warm again, just as SoCal is supposed to be. We started the day with a drive in the Lexus RX 350, the barometer by which the Veracruz is internally judged at Hyundai. We followed with a long haul in the Veracruz, specifically a Limited AWD model. Along the way, we stopped off for lunch and took longer than company officials would have liked comparing the Veracruz with the Honda Pilot and Toyota Highlander, both made available by Hyundai.