Busy Days, Lots of Walking and We Meet Ivan

 

We have had a busy couple of days, Tuesday the day after our long trek across the lake bed we met fellow blogger Ivan who is parked behind us. Ivan rode his bike over in the morning and we had a really nice visit, he is very easy to talk to. It is odd that when you meet other bloggers.it is like you have a whole bunch of friends in common.

Ivan is staying in Borrego for a few days, hopefully we can get together again before he leaves.

Just as Ivan was leaving our friends Mike and Charlotte arrived from the Slab, where they had spent three weeks. We have a really big site so they were able to share it with us.

We decided to take the dogs for a walk this morning,and ended up walking to the lake bed and back,it was getting pretty warm by the time we got back and the dogs were pretty done in.

Skip, Mike and Charlotte heading back up the road.

After lunch Mike came over to ask if we would show them the metal sculptures in Borrego Springs, we were happy to be tour guides and off we went in Mikes truck.

Charlotte and Mike by the gold panner and horse.

Charlotte patting the Javelina and her babies

This elephant was wearing his Christmas bow

This Serpent is new this year and spans both side of the road.

It is really massive

There were lots more to show them but we decided to call it a day,we were all pretty tired  from our long walk and the sun was really hot today.

 

Jean

A Walk Across The Dry Lake Bed a Bit Disappointing

 

Our neighbour  Martin told us about the remains of a homestead across Clark Dry Lake Bed. The homestead is hidden behind a grove off Tamarisk trees. He said that there were Great Horned Owls there too.

We didn’t decide to walk across the lake bed until noon,we packed a back pack and off we went.

The lakebed from our site, the Tamarisk trees are barely visible against the mountain

 

 

It was a long walk from the motorhome  to the lake bed where we could get a good look at the Tamarisk Grove

There was water on the lakebed in several places.

There are signs everywhere saying not to drive on the lakebed but I guess some people can’t read.

 

There are several of these structures on the lakebed, we have no idea what they are.

As we neared the other side of the lakebed there were small hills and sand dunes.

And finally the Trees

The Trees were beautiful, some half covered with the drifting sand. It took us almost two hours to reach our destination, we had to count on two hours going back, which didn’t leave us a lot of time to look around.

We walked around the grove and saw some evidence of a homestead. Apiece of tin roofing.

As I was taking this picture of a dead tree I liked

there was a great fluttering of wings and I looked up to see a bird with a huge wingspan flying out of the tree. Skip was so excited until he realized I didn’t get a picture of the owls, he said there were eight to ten owls and  he couldn’t believe I hadn’t got a picture of them.

I gave him the camera and I went to the other side of the grove to see if they would fly back towards him. I did see one leave the trees, he was just beautiful as he flew over my head. We walked around the grove several times but the owls were just to well hidden, or they were smarter  than we were, Perhaps both.

We had to leave the trees and head back to our motorhome, we had had a long walk and we sure didn’t want to be trying to find our way in the dark.

We came across this interesting footprint on the way back. someone is pretty brave.

We were glad to finally see our campsite

We saw Martin when we got back he said it was four or five mile walk to the trees, so we walked almost four hours, between eight and ten miles and didn’t get a picture of the owls or see what’s left of the homestead.

Guess we’ll have to go again.

Jean

A Quiet Desert Christmas

 

We had a wonderful warm Christmas day. I got all the vegetables for our Christmas dinner ready, then we sat in the sun reading for most of the day.

The temperature today in the shade

 

 

We bought our vegetables in La Quinta at Trader Joes, I have never seen brussel sprouts sold like this.

 

Stuart was asking about the area we are camping in. Our site is quite large.

Our driveway is off this dirt road

Our driveway

Our nearest neighbours

We were invited over to one of the neighbours this afternoon, they are probably 300 yds. away.

Martin and Gay are from Sidney on Vancouver Island.

I took the camera to get a picture of them, but when we got there they and their friends from Alaska were watching a Kangaroo Rat, who kept popping up out of his hole to get the food they has put out. I told them my friends back home wouldn’t believe I would spend part of Christmas day looking for a rat.

But he was cute and really fast.

He would pop out grab a peanut and then disappear back into his hole

Gay gave us some homemade cheesecake, which we had after our turkey dinner.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day!

 

Jean

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

We hope everyone has a Happy Christmas, and that you all get to spend it with family and friends.

 

Jean, Skip, Jake Sophie and Louie.

 

 

A Trip To See The Elephants Knees

Sunday morning the wind had stopped blowing so we decided to take a trip to see the rock formations known as Elephants Knees. The Elephants Knees along with the Wind Cave  are at south east corner of Anza Borrego State Park. To get there you have to drive past the town of Ocotillo Well which is the site of a large area for off road vehicles, there are hundreds of RVs parked  in the  desert. When we went by there were a few ATVS on the hills.

To get to the Elephant Knees you drive through Split Mountain Canyon.

The canyon is narrow in parts with a strange mixture of rocks formed by earthquakes                                                                                                                                 We saw the Wind Caves in the distance but decided to walk to the Elephant Knees first.

To get close we had to walk up a very muddy wash.

 

There has been quite a bit of rain in the last week and it was really hard walking.

Louie did a nose plant

We  got as close as we could

There are so many spectacular rock formations in the Anza Borrego, and the Elephant Knees are certainly one of them.

By the time we had hiked back down to the car it was spitting rain and  we were all pretty muddy, Skip and I couldn’t get the mud off our sneakers, it was like glue. We decided  to put off climbing up to the wind tunnels for another time

The wind tunnels in the distance.

Today was sunny and pretty warm, we had to take the motor home in to town to get water and propane and to dump our tanks.

Our Christmas Tree

Jean

Boy, That Will Teach Me

 

Yesterday I wrote that at least the wind wasn’t blowing, guess I spoke to soon, it started blowing with a vengeance through the night and is still blowing at ten o’clock Friday night.Wind and driving rain kind of makes me wonder what I am doing here.

We did go out for lunch today we went to the Red Ocotillo  at the Palms Resort. It was an interesting lunch, we were told the resort was being restored, at one time, it was called the Hoberg Resort built in 1947   it was a favorite of some of Hollywood's stars,, such as Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Lon Chaney and others. It had it’s own air strip.

The pool is not heated, although I read it will be heated by solar in 2012.

I  didn’t take a picture of the pool, because it was too cold and blowing, I found this on  the web. I have no idea how to make the picture smaller. It is said to be one of the largest private pools in California.

The original lodge burned down in 1958, it was rebuilt the following year. over the years it was home to a nudist retreat and a detention center.

There are two dining rooms we ate at the Red Ocotillo which is less formal than the Krazy Coyote

.

Our food was good,Skip had a burger and I had a Rueben sandwich, the desert was really good.

A coconut snowball  for me

Apple cobbler for Skip

We were glad we went, the service was a little slow, but we weren’t in a hurry so it didn’t matter.

Jean

I couldn't post this last night so am trying again today Sat