Anza Borrego, To Ogilby Rd, & Merry Christmas

 

We left Borrego  on Saturday after five weeks of doing very little, we had a few days of rain

A few days of cloudy skies

We enjoyed spending  time with Tom and Diane who we met last year here last year and meeting   Nan and John who were parked, beside us.

Tom and  Diane and Nell.

We saw Nina for a few minutes, the day before we left and met  Linda and Steven who are from Vancouver Island also. We were sorry to be leaving as everyone was arriving but it was time to go, and we will be seeing   most of them again this winter.This will be the first Christmas in five years we haven’t been in Borrego.

 

We are  at Ogilby Rd  just out of Yuma,

Our site

On Sunday we  drove over to Pilot Knob RV Park to see George and Suzie, who were leaving for Desert Hot Springs in the morning. Denise was there when we arrived so we were able to visit with her too. It was just a quick visit as George was cooking dinner on the Webber Q, we will likely see them next month if we go to Quartzsite nest month.

George, Suzie, Denise and Bennie.

We think we will be here for a few weeks, we are debating going to Quartzsite when  the RV Show is on, we have never been there when it is so crowded. the thought of all those people makes me nervous, but it is good to move out the comfort zone… or so they say.

 

We want to wish you all Merry Christmas and a Peaceful, Happy New Year.

 

Jean and Skip

Borrego Springs the Old and the New

The first time we visited Borrego Springs, we noticed an older RV park  on Palm Canyon Drive on the left hand side as you drive toward the visitors center,’We were curious about

So yesterday we finally took a drive through this small totally cool park. 

Some were plain with little landscaping, most were not

Loved the plants and the privacy


This one was for sale




There were  around forty RVs all vintage and most of them looked well loved, I just took the pictures form the car, and didn’t take any when the owners were out side.

When we drove past the airport on the way to town, we immediately noticed the new solar installation on the far side of the airport.

This is the second solar field in Borrego, I believe this is the first stage. These panels are dual axis panels that track the sun. They have an odd finish like an oil slick. And they are huge. There will be 2800 of theses type of panels.
The first solar project which was completed last year is massive, with 102,000 single  axis panels that can generate power  for 21,000 homes.

The solar plant sells energy to San Diego County.
Naturally these solar fields are not without controversy, some people feel they are a blight on the landscape, and they use a lot of  water  from an already depleted aquifer, for cleaning the panels.

Progress I guess but I like  the vintage RVs,
and
Jake likes to sleep with his head on the bowls so he doesn’t miss dinner


Jean

Back in Borrego

We left Ogilby Rd on Monday after saying  see  you later to Denise and BennIE.  The off roaders were already starting to fill up the dunes area.

We  drove  to El Centro so we could stop at Costco then up  86 to the Arco  Station, to dump our tanks and get water and propane. No charge this year.. except for the propane of course.
When we got to the boondocking area we were really happy to get the same spot we had last year, it was exactly as we left it.Even the stick that held the bird feeder was there.


Looking toward Coyote Mountain

We have just been hanging out at our site, it is pretty crazy around Borrego Springs Thanksgiving week.
We do go for walks everyday. I took Sophie and Louie up Inspiration Wash one day and down to the Dry Lake Bed today. Jake doesn’t come with us in the morning, but just before dinner, Skip brings him and we all go for a shorter walk.
We did make one trip to town.

Three dollars for a big bag of grapefruit, the oranges and Tangelos will be  ready  in a month.
The WINs were at Peg Leg camping area.

The day before Thanksgiving the Escapees were parked beside us. That’s Coyote Mountain again.
It was starting to get a tad dusty, the off roaders were at the corner by Peg Leg
There is a  sign at the corner where the off roaders go  185 acres for  sale.
There was a steady stream of RVs leaving today, there is hardly anybody parked where we are directly up from Clark Dry Lake, a fifth wheel is parked  in the site nearest us, we think they are also from Vancouver Island.
We woke up to a cloudy sky this morning, it did make for a pretty spectacular sunrise. I didn’t  touch up this picture.

Jean

Spending time with Friends

I’ve had a real hard time with this post, I have been trying to put it together for  three days. In between fighting with my computer,.. more on that later.
We just spent three days with our friends Al and Kelly at their home in Congress, if you read their blog you know all about out visit. Check out  Nov. 10 – 11 – 12th
Al took so many amazing pictures and wrote so well about our visit.You can see them
Here then click forward for the next two days. .
We are pretty private people and would normally never stay in anybody's yard especially with three dogs, but  they made us and our dogs feel so welcome. Sophie, Louie and Jake had  fun playing with Pheebs, and of course loved Al and Kelly. Jake was,allowed to visit in their house (most people are understandably not thrilled about 110lb dog in their living room)

Kelly took this picture with my new camera, also the next one that shows my graceful descent.

I have no idea what cows eat in the desert, but they look healthy, even the calf beside his mom

We had such a fun time with them, going out to the amazing desert near their house, checking out the old cemetery and going to Yarnell  where we met Gaelyn  who is a ranger,who spends her summers at the Grand Canyon, and her winters travelling, last year was South. Africa.

We were sad to leave, but hopefully we will meet up again this winter and spend some more time together.
After we left congress we drove to Ogilby Rd  just 12 miles west of Yuma in California , we  have stayed here  each winter  on our way to Borrego Springs.
We were just setting up when Denise  pulled in, she usually stays at Pilot Knob, but decided to join us. It was good to see her.

And  Little Benny

Denise has been having computer problems and had just found out she had a virus. She thinks she got it on Oct 21 which is when she noticed she was using way too many GB .Because we email back and forth I checked my anti virus program which is Windows Essentials, sure enough there was a Trojan Virus  the program caught and put  in quarantine on Oct. 21. I thought  I should run the MalwareBytes  program which  turned out to be missing (?)  I reinstalled it but it brought with it three different programs which I didn’t want, and yes I checked to see if there were any add ons and  read the fine print, and it still happened . It took forever to get rid of them.
I am pretty happy with my new camera, I like the zoom a lot.




Jean

Well this is interesting ......this post wouldn't publish, until I tried to post another last night. I guess it doesn't
matter, I'll just add we are on our way to Borrego this morning.

Looking for Skylight Arch Cave

 

One of the highlights of our stay along San Rafael Reef was looking for and finding Skylight Arch also known as Wild Horse Window Arch. We had several  maps showing the location, but there was no marked trail we could find.

This where we were heading.

 

We had seen several groups heading up the slick rock  toward  where we thought the cave was, so we packed up and walked up Wild Horse Wash to  look for a trail up. Walking up the slick rock was fun, but it took us a while  to find some cairns that marked the way. The problem with following the cairns is you don’t know who placed them and they were so darn hard to see,  most of them being  the same colour as the rock.

Skip Taking a break

We could see our RV and our neighbours across the wash, we are where the little blue x is.

At  one  point we could hear dogs barking and realized it was our dogs. We looked back at our rig and we could see our neighbour walking around  our site with his dog. Amazing how sound carries across the canyons

 

We could see the cave for quite a ways and finally we were at the narrow path leading up to Skylight  Cave.

 

We were told by two hikers we met that the Pictographs  were fake.

It is a huge cave, Skip looks so small.

We had a fun day looking for  the cave and walking up the slick rock.  The San Rafael Reef area has much to do and see, and we love it here.

 

Jean

Goblin State Park is Amazing

 

We woke up to a cloudy windy day, so we decided to  go to Goblin State Park for the afternoon. We  ended up going for a six or seven mile hike.

From the web:

The unusual stone shapes in Goblin Valley result from the weathering of Entrada Sandstone. The Entrada consists of debris eroded from former highlands and redeposited on a former tidal flat of alternating layers of sandstone, siltstone and shale. The rocks show evidence of being near the margins of an ancient sea with the ebb and flow of tides, tidal channels that directed currents back to the sea and coastal sand dunes.

Joint or fracture patterns within the Entrada sandstone beds created initial zones of weakness. The unweathered joints intersected to form sharp edges and corners with greater surface-area-to-volume ratios than the faces. As a result, the edges weathered more quickly, producing the spherical-shaped 'goblins'.

The Entrada Sandstone from which the hoodoos developed was deposited in the Jurassic Period around 170 million years ago.

 

 

Little Wild Horse Butte

We paid our $8.00 for a day pass, and drove up to the view point, where the trails began and where you could see lot’s of Goblins. We decided we would hike the short trail to Goblins Lair.

The beginning of the trail down

Strange rocks

And beautiful Vistas

 

Most of the trail wasn’t very well marked, there were a few cairns to follow as we went farther down the trail to the bottom of the gorge.

It was very hot by the time we were walking on the flat valley floor. We

passed this sign

We continued on until we came to what we think is Goblin”s Lair

There was no sign so we continued across the valley there was barely a path but there were magnificent cliffs with spires and goblins.

After a couple of hours, we turned and headed back  to the viewpoint. By the time we made our way back across the valleys and climbed back up to the trail head and the car, we were hot and tired,  so we decided we would  come back another day and see the rest of the park

Our Verizon signal  is really, really, slow most times we have a 1X signal showing sometimes 3G for  a few minutes. Too  slow for pictures to load.

BUT we are loving this area and will come back.

Jean