The Desert

Friday, October 25, 2013

Okay, since we are home now I guess it’s time to catch up on our wild adventures! We last saw you in Joshua Tree National Park. Let’s see if I can remember back that far.

On Friday morning, October 25, as soon as the sun rose above the high hill to our east, it started to warm up and we enjoyed breakfast at the picnic table and talked about what we would do. We started out by crossing Interstate 10 and continued on toward Mecca, CA on 168. It wound down a little canyon that was quite nice. There was a lot of evidence of the flash floods that rip through the area, but it was dry as we went through.

Mecca is in the Choachella valley, and as we came out of the canyon it  opened up to a huge agricultural valley. We were wishing for an outlet farm market, but none to be found. Barney said it was because it is all commercial fields. We saw lots of date palms, and they were interesting with the date bunches all covered with paper. We passed by a large field of probably bell peppers, and just enjoyed seeing the whole valley.

Going south along the Salton Sea, we turned west on S22. That was quite an experience. It must be somewhat like driving the Alaska Highway with its frost heaves. I thought it seemed like broken springs road. Really bounced us around, and kind of disturbed everything inside the campers! It goes through the Anza Borrego desert, and there were quite a few people camping anywhere they pleased. One section was for off road vehicles, and there were lots of vehicles there, and as we went on down the road, there was evidence of more going to join them!

The VC at the Anza Borrego State Park was our destination where we obtained the stamp we were after. We enjoyed the VC. The staff was very friendly and we enjoyed the movie and looking around.

It was too early in the day, and quite warm, so we didn’t camp out there, but went winding up and up and up the hill. It must have been 10 miles of climbing around tight turns. We hadn’t seen any restriction signs, but didn’t envy the larger rigs going by heading down the hill. Hope they had good brakes!

Eventually we found a small campground nestled in the oak trees, and called it a day. We were just outside Temecula, CA, and went into Old Town looking for the Olive Oil store, but didn’t bother to find a parking spot. It was much too touristy for us. We did stop and top off the tanks, and found something to fuel us up too before heading back to the campground. It was very quiet and peaceful, and we turned in early.