January 5, 2006 at 5:15 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
OK, we have had our offroading experiences. The Nissan is now, uh, “broken in” (a few scratches), and we’ve learned what it is all about.
Yesterday we spent the afternoon checking out a slot canyon which is only reachable by 4wd road. You drive about two miles and then climb down into the canyon. The canyons go for miles sometimes. Serious fun!
Later, we took the scenic route through a few rocky washes (dry creeks), and found some SERIOUS off-roading spots. I wish I had a picture of us going down a steep rutted slope in 4WD LO, but at the time our thoughts were mostly of survival. The roads can go from sandy tracks to “mountain goat required” in an instant. In fact, the road with the steep descent was called “Goat Trail”. It should have been a clue! Fortunately, most of our routes were fun and easy driving.
At one point, driving down a rocky wash, Eleanor asked if we could get the Airstream in there. Uh, probably not. But it would be a very cool place to camp — very isolated, very private, very pretty.
We topped off the evening with a campfire cookout, and then I had to get to work. I’ve been working early mornings and late evenings so I can get the most out of the sunny days. If you see me on AOL IM late at night, that’s why. (My AOL screenname is “rluhr” — feel free to say Hi sometime.)
Today we snuck out of the “office” at 11 and headed out for more exploring. This time we hit a 4wd road that leads to “Wind caves”, which are sandstone deposits eroded by the wind into interesting formations. On the way, we passed through a large canyon. Those canyons are magical. Fossilized mollusks make up some of the walls, along with sandstone, desert flowers, even bees. There’s always something to stop and take a look at.
The wind caves are a one-mile hike from the road (mostly up), and it was the perfect day for it: sunny, 80 degrees, light breeze, dry. And the views from the top were spectacular.
The caves are small but perfect for kids to climb in and around. I checked them for scorpions and similar critters, but they were all empty except for sand.
We did manage to uncover some interesting symbols drawn on the rock.
Our final venture was to Sandstone Canyon, which was extremely interesting at times. In the photo below we’ve just come out of one of the deep winding slots. But this spot was easy. At times we had to fold up the side mirrors and watch both sides to make sure we could fit! We did pretty well until we reached a spot where it was too technical to continue. I had to back out for about 100 feet, and unfortunately scraped the front lower bumper a bit along the sandstone. Oh well.
Back at camp, we found a note from Bruno Accart, a subscriber and blog reader from France. Bruno and his family are in southern California on their annual vacation. Unfortunately, Bruno lost my phone number and so he couldn’t call today to tell me he was coming for a visit. He sent a note through this website but I didn’t get it until I got home. By then, there was a note on our door: “Hi to Rich & you family. Bruno and Leila were here … but not you. Maybe for the next time. Bruno & Leila — FRANCE –”
Sorry Bruno! I tried to call you back but my mobile phone wouldn’t let me call your mobile phone because your phone number is in France. If you see this — give me a call at 1-802-877-2900. I have a t-shirt here for you!
January 4, 2006 at 8:52 am · Filed under Uncategorized
The campground was full this weekend, for the New Year’s Eve gatherings. But now that the crowds of RV’ers have departed, the park has fallen into a quieter state. Every morning I hear dozens of tiny birds chirping birds in the smoke trees and the fan palms. The purple-headed Costa’s Hummingbird whips by too, so quickly that we often don’t see it, but we hear the loud hum, like a giant bumblebee.
The campground is now half full, with retiree snowbirds doing whatever it is they do. We don’t see many of them. After dark a few can be spotted sitting by a campfire with friends, but most of them seem to retreat inside to watch TV on their satellite dishes.
After dark I stood in the desert watching the sky for a while. It was the first clear night we have had since we got here. The Milky Way was splashed overhead and a crescent moon was framed by the big fan palms to our southwest. I could hear a night bird screaming overhead as it patrolled the campground, undoubtedly looking for a rodent to eat.
The town has gone quiet, too. Borrego Springs is basically defined by a central road that heads east-west. At the west, it dead-ends into the State Park headquarters and campground, where we live now. A mile further west and you’d hit the mountains, but there are no roads past the campground. To the east, we have a mile of not much, then a small strip of downtown.
We pass the quiet town on the way to anything else in the park. Gas $2.69, then an RV resort, an Inn, a couple of strip malls (grocery, lawyer, gifts, tacos, post office), a little Mexican market, real estate office, laundry, and the centerpiece of town: “Christmas Circle”.
Christmas Circle is just a rotary with a patch of grass in the middle and a visitor center. To the north there are a few scattered subdivisions, to the east a few miles there is an airport, and to the south there is a slowly rising road called S3 (and later S22) that you can drive for 50 miles without leaving the desert park.
Being here now is like lingering after a big party. The place seems empty, but really, emptiness is its natural state. To someone who wants excitement, there is “nothing to do.” But if you look more closely, there is too much to do. Once I finish some work, we will hopefully have time to do some more exploring today.
January 2, 2006 at 5:12 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Our life in the desert has been full. Yesterday you may have noticed I didn’t blog at all. We decided to take a day off to recuperate. I’m dealing with a small post-cold infection, which is clearing up by itself, and Eleanor is definitely fighting off something, probably my virus. So we slept as late as we could, stayed home and just enjoyed the desert sunshine, with nothing more strenuous than a short bike ride around the camp.
On our quiet day, we were pleased indeed to be visited by blog readers Bill and Beth Kerfoot. They drove two hours from their home near Los Angeles to come show us pictures of their really cool 1954 Airstream Liner, which is undergoing a major restoration. AND they brought us lemon cake and cookies! (Way to go, Bill & Beth. You guys are welcome anytime! )
The Kerfoots spent the afternoon and left just before sunset, not long after I took this photo of the two friendly fan palms that guard our Airstream. We settled in for a quick evening campfire (marshmallows for Emma and Eleanor), dinner, a movie, and hit the sack early.
Today was the day for weather. Heavy rain has reached most of California, so we arrived in the desert just in time. Even here, gusty winds and occasional rain showers have been coming and going all day, but in the desert rain is such an event that it doesn’t seem bothersome. I took down the awning, stowed anything loose, and then went for a bike ride …
… whereupon I met up with Sam and Annette Halderman, another pair of loyal blog readers. These folks were camped just a few rows away from us in their fairly new Airstream Safari 25. Sam told me they had been meaning to catch up with us at Sweetwater Summit but the timing didn’t work. So, they found us here!
As they left, the Halderman’s posed their Safari next to ours!
I love when we meet people because of this blog! Sam and Annette gave me a pile of great info about the Tucson area (where we will be heading in a couple of weeks) and we talked about all things Airstream until I got called away to go attend a bat talk at the Visitor’s Center with E&E. The bat talk was fascinating and the Visitor’s Center has been re-done since our last visit — it is really top-notch now.
By the time we got back, the rainbows had arrived, which I posted below already. The changing desert light and clouds made for some spectacular scenery.
Trying to continue taking it easy, we decided to go off-roading for the afternoon. The Nissan has never been off road and it certainly is capable enough (when not towing an Airstream). The folks at the Visitor’s Center suggested a few routes for us to try, starting with Palo Verde, about ten miles east.
Great fun! The route wasn’t seriously challenging (mostly soft sand), but the scenery and geology were terrific. In the photo above you can see Eleanor unloading Emma at one of our stops, along a wide dry wash called “Short Wash”.
A later stop at Vista Del Malpais yielded some incredible views into the Anza-Borrego badlands. I’ve been to Anza Borrego four times and never seen this part of the park. The effect of standing up on the vista with the wind whipping at perhaps 30 MPH, and the badlands hundreds of feet below is just elating. It’s like a miniature Grand Canyon. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I have learned from today that the desert is at its most dramatic when clouds arrive. Shadows on the mountains, rainbows, gray streaks of cloud dipping down, dust storms on the horizon — all these things enhance the visual experience of the desert in ways one can hardly imagine. And you have to be looking all the time, because no view lasts for more than a few minutes. I shot over 100 photos today and had to restrain myself from shooting dozens more.
After our off-road adventure, we stopped by some of the random spots where people are camping. Anza-Borrego is almost unique in that camping is allowed almost anywhere. Just pull up and set up your tent, or park your RV. Stay as long as you want.
So that’s what RV’ers do. Everywhere, scattered across 50 miles of parkland, you will find RVs in the most unlikely spots, completely isolated, sitting in the desert. There are no services (except that cell phones work near Borrego Springs.) No water, no electricity, no 911. But still hundreds of RVs are to be found, including many Airstreams, such as the unusual double-door Classic Limited we saw (above).
I talked to one of the Airstreamers who does this, and he told me he had been out there for over a month. The last two weeks he had his mother (80-plus years old) along. She has been Airstreaming for 23 years and knows more about boondocking than most of us will ever learn. They conserve water scrupulously, making a 50 gallon tank last for at least two weeks. Solar panels on the roof give him enough power to run a microwave once a day, watch two hours of TV on his satellite dish (there are four channels here but all are from Mexico and hence only in Spanish), and run his coffee maker, lights, water pump, etc. When the water is low, he pays $6 to come into the state park, refill, dump the holding tanks, take a shower, and he’s good again for another couple of weeks. If he needs something, all the services of Borrego Springs are only six miles away.
Cost of living? $6 every two weeks, plus food. All the scenery you can stand, and plenty of jackrabbits (and fellow RV’ers) for company. You could do worse.
I like it here.
January 2, 2006 at 1:31 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We are about to go off-roading for the afternoon, but as we were preparing to leave a bit of rain arrived and yielded a glorious rainbow over the desert. Emma and I grabbed our cameras and ran out. The rain was pelting us but drying almost as quickly. I got a few shots — here’s one.
The wind is gusty (15-25 most of the time but occasionally we get a monster gust that rocks the trailer) and the rain keeps coming and going. The sun is shining at the same time, so it’s a little bizarre. Desert weather.
I’ll report in later about our 4WD experience, our Airstream visitors yesterday and today, and the bat talk we went to this morning.
December 31, 2005 at 11:05 am · Filed under Uncategorized
There are five other Airstreams here! That may not seem like a lot, but it’s a record for any campground we’ve visited on this trip. In fact, it’s the most we’ve ever seen together outside of a rally. So I walked out into the desert sunshine this morning with Emma to go give each one a copy of Airstream Life. There was a 1990s Sovereign 25, a new Classic 30 slide-out, a new International CCD 19, and a 1970s Argosy 24 motorhome, and a unusual 80s “Squarestream” 29 footer with two entry doors.
I got a chance to chat with the owners of the Squarestream (which, if you haven’t seen one, is a boxy fiberglass trailer that Airstream produced only for a short period. They were happy to give me an inside tour while Emma took pictures of their dog with her digital camera.
Our campsite is rather ordinary in that it is basically a parcel of pavement off one of the campground loop roads. But the view is extraordinary, surrounded by mountains on three sides, which constantly change in color and detail with the movement of the sun and clouds above. A pair of enormous fan palms (the only type to grow here) are nearby in the sand, casting a morning shadow on our trailer.
The fan palm itself is an interesting thing. They let their upper fronds droop as they grow, sheathing the core of the tree in a thick layer of brown leaves. They are large and magnificent when they mature, like redwoods of the desert. A group of them is a sure sign of water.
Anza-Borrego is a place for exploring. There are literally hundreds of square miles of area here, filled with wildlife, flowers, canyons, streams, oases, geology, off-road trails, abandoned mines, and hiking trails. The desert is far from empty, if you care to look beyond the highway.
We took Emma on a little hike up to Palm Canyon. This mild 1.5 mile trail (one way) climbs up a dry wash strewn with boulders from giant floods that tumbled down the mountains over thousands of years (and as recently as last September). It turns to a rocky scramble, crossing a perennial stream several times, and ends up at a palm oasis. Along the way we had terrific homeschooling opportunities, talking about desert plants, rocks, and animals.
You’ve got to look closely if you want to spot desert flowers. They are out there in abundance when there is water to be had, but often hiding. Heavy rains last September left enough moisture in the ground for them to survive to now. We spotted them in many colors, including a royal purple, a bright red (whose shape was designed for hummingbirds), orange, yellow, and white.
The extra moisture has encouraged other creatures as well. Yesterday we spotted a desert fox, and today we saw a beautiful “Costa’s hummingbird” and honeybees pollinating the desert sage. Unfortunately we struck out on the bighorn sheep, but we have thoughts to try again tomorrow morning when we are more likely to see them. There have been reports of a mountain lion too, but it is very unlikely we will see one since they avoid humans as much as possible.
This is “bad weather” for the desert. The wind was blowing gusty all day, and we had a tiny sprinkling rain hit for about 30 seconds this evening. Chance of rain tonight is an astonishing 50%. But nobody’s expecting more than a drip or two. This place only gets 6 inches of rain per year on average. Tomorrow should be nicer.
I posted a pile of photos on Flickr tonight, under the album name “Anza-Borrego Desert State Park”. You’ll see a lot more than what I’ve talked about here if you check them out.
December 30, 2005 at 6:08 pm · Filed under Places to go
This morning we hitched up and moved out! We pulled the Airstream up to 4000 ft elevation on I-8, crossing the rocky summits and winding down slowly to the desert floor on the eastern side. It was a marvelous scenic trip through a very quiet corner of California. Halfway along I-8, we pulled off onto an abandoned road somewhere near the border of San Diego and Imperial counties and took in the view while we had lunch.
View from our lunch stop.
Because I was having equalization problems due to the aftereffects of the cold, we took a massive detour which allowed us to descend more slowly. It also doubled the length of our trip, and bypassed the historic town of Julian. We’ll stop in Julian on the way back, instead.
This spot rocks! Borrego Springs is a small town in the middle of a very big desert state park: Anza-Borrego State Park. We’re camped in one of the two state park campgrounds, just west of town at the foot of the mountain range. Full hookups, five bars on the mobile phones, good Internet service, endless sunshine and 70 degrees every day!
Plus, the heavy rains of last summer have yielded a bonus: desert flowers out of season. We’ve already spotted a few.
There’s lots to do. This is high season for the park, so there are three ranger talks each day, nightly campfire programs at 7:30, and Anza Borrego is famous for great hiking, bighorn sheep, and off-roading. Even the campground is fun: everyone has colorful lights on their awnings and glorious wood campfires on the sand (in fire rings), probably getting in the mood for New Year’s Eve. I think we’re going to like it here. Tomorrow, we have some hikes planned. I’ll start posting pictures tomorrow night.
December 29, 2005 at 7:54 pm · Filed under Places to go
I am pleased to report that Operation Kill Paper has been a success already, although it is not complete. I’ve reduced my paper to about half of what it was, and we celebrated with a paper bonfire at sunset. If we’d had some wood handy I would have gotten a proper fire going — the evening temperatures are perfect for it.
One of the very best places in San Diego is Balboa Park. A beautiful and architecturally interesting place, it is both a series of green parklands and world-class collection of museums.
On Saturday we visited the Museum of Natural History, on Christmas we went there for the San Diego Zoo, on Tuesday (while I was stuck at home with a cold) Eleanor & Emma went to the Aerospace Museum, and today we returned to go the Reuben Fleet Science Center. Among other things, Emma got to learn about tornadoes.
Just a walk around Balboa Park is worth the trip, even if you never enter a building. Most of the building designs are based on Spanish Colonial Architecture, dripping with terra-cotta oraments and sculpted details. I wish I’d taken some photos for you but my head was just not fully together today. (The cold lingers on.)
The question now is whether we’ll depart tomorrow for Borrego Springs or hang around San Diego another day. We’ll decide tomorrow.
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