We woke to a beautiful sunrise today:
We were heading for Borrego Springs today, and got an early start. Once the coffee was made we headed in to JTNP again, and used the campground facilities and dump station there.
We had decided to go back into the park today to visit the Cholla Gardens. It was so busy yesterday we couldn’t get parked anywhere near there. It was a real nice tour this morning:
Cholla are real pretty cacti, and really nasty to contact (we hear!).
The little bits on the ground are from the ends of the arms of the cactus, and each bit can take root and grow into a new cactus:
The little barrel cacti are changing colour and preparing to flower, likely in March:
When we headed south and out of the park today, we drove across Box Canyon Road to Mecca, instead of the Indio/I10 route we took to the park. What a pretty drive this is, MUCH nicer than I10!
The drive was quite green (for a desert), lots of wild lupins and other plants.
On the way along the western shores of the Salton Sea today, we passed some large-scale agriculture:
After looking closer, we realized these were all green peppers:
We also saw huge fields of grape vines, in various stages of leafing out. And lemon trees at the side of the road.
Tonight, and likely for the next 2 nights, we're camped at the Anza Borrego Desert State Park. After boondocking for the past week, this is pretty luxurious! We don't have services at our site, but flush toilets and showers are just a few steps away, and it's a really pretty setting. $23/night, seniors rate.
After setting up (pretty simple with a van camper and no hookups), a rest, showers and lunch we went out for a drive around the area.
We found a few of the metal sculptures the area is known for:
We'll be touring the area more over the next few days, hoping for more weather like we had today! It was up to 24C with a nice soft breeze.
We woke to a nice sunny 16C at 6:30 am today. After a morning coffee and a chat with Doug, we headed back in to JTNP for a tour. I'm afraid it didn't get a fair shake from us today, as it was a holiday Monday with free park admission for President's Day. Boy was it packed in the Joshua Tree area!
We did a circle tour of the park though, and it's a pretty place. Lots of ocotillo, some starting to produce green leaves and deeper red blossoms; some snow in the upper elevations around the town of Twenty-Nine Palms, just north of the park:
We stocked up with some groceries in 29 Palms, then re-entered JTNP from the north this time. This was a really busy area, especially today. We couldn’t get near any of the parking areas or hiking trails on our way back “home”.
Does this look like a Yak to you?
We did see some of the trees the park is named
after:
And then the really good part - back at camp!
AAAAHHH!
We're on the road again today. We had decided to head to Borrego Springs for a few days, but on the way there changed our minds and went to Joshua Tree National Park instead. It's President's Day weekend, and we expect that Borrego Springs will be quite busy. In hindsight I think we made the wrong decision!
In the morning light, the hills to the east of where we had camped the past 3 days didn’t look real:
The ocotillo plants are starting to bloom. Most of the year these plants look like a bundle of dry dead sticks:
The desert is greening up, subtle but there:
Awesome hills showing up from under the morning fog:
The gravel on the shoulder of the road was pretty soft after the recent rains:
We drove through an area called the Imperial Sand Dunes. It's a playground for dune buggies etc, especially on this long weekend:
On our way past the Salton Sea, our elevation got a little low. Notice the Minus sign:
The shoreline of the Salton Sea. As the name implies, it's very salty water:
There are State campgrounds right on the shoreline.
The fog came back, so we had a stop at the Brawley McDonalds for some breakfast and to wait for it to clear up some. Visibility was poor, not really unsafe for driving but it did interfere with sightseeing.
We stopped at a Date Gardens store on hwy 86 near Coachella, a real oasis where they sell an amazing variety of date types. They had an assortment of date varieties set out for taste test, which we enjoyed.
Our GPS got quite confused around Indio, taking us in a complete useless circle around a block. We eventually figured out how to reach an Arco station for a fuel fillup though, then headed east out of Indio for Joshua Tree NP.
As we sort of expected, there were no campground vacancies in the Park, so we headed back out the south end of the park to a boondocking area there. It’s BLM land, free camping but no services. We're lucky to have that option.
We knew about this area because of another blog we’ve been following, and ended up camping near Doug and his doggy pal Yuma:
It’s almost like this is a serviced area for us. With our annual US National Parks pass, we can go back in to Joshua Tree NP for free anytime, and use the facilities (dump station, water, washrooms) at the Cottonwood Springs campground just inside the park, even though no sites were available there.
Cool and rainy today, just 11C at 11 am. In the
morning we just hung out in the van, listening to
NPR, reading and knitting.
The BB invited us for tea again in the afternoon
(lovely to have electronic communications way
out here).
The dry wash behind our site became pretty full of
water from the rain we had. It made it easier to
imagine how careful we must be when picking
boondocking sites. We were fine here though.
Today was a day for doing chores, visiting Yuma, and battening down the hatches for the oncoming (we hear) storm.
We headed in to Yuma this morning to have breakfast and a look around, get a laundry done, and a couple more odds and ends. Cathie got some Kroy sock yarn in Jo-Ann’s.
In my search for a Garmin topo map, I was in to a sporting goods store. They were advertising 9mm handguns, and assuring prospective buyers that winter visitors can buy one too, in Arizona. Made in the USA, and only $169. Yikes! They also had a hand-held anti-tank weapon featured on sale for only about $7,000. Holy Cow, we're not used to this stuff!
In the early pm we were invited to Al and Kelly's for afternoon tea which lasted til about 5pm. We seem to have a lot to talk about once started. It's getting quite windy here now, and cloudy. We're supposed to get rain tomorrow, as we get brushed by a major storm in California.
We expect to stay put here until Sunday. It's a holiday weekend here in the US (President's Day), so the weekend is busier than usual, except for our peaceful spot in the desert.
FYI for another time – exit 164 off I8 is real close to the boondocking area, and the Chevron station there has dump facilities, laundry, water etc, although apparently more expensive than in Yuma where we went.
