Desert Fun and Friends

It's been over a week since our last blog--sorry about that! We spent some time reacquainting ourselves with one of our favorite old hangouts, the Anza Borrego Desert State Park a couple of hours east of San Diego. This park is HUGE--all the other California state parks could fit inside it! You could get lost here for a lifetime. We moved to a nice campground right in Borrego Springs, the sleepy small town that is surrounded by the gigantic park and acts sort of as the Park headquarters. Our campground is actually a hotel with an adjacent RV park, with nice amenities like swimming pools and a hot tub.

View from Visitor Center, Anza Borrego State Park.

Museum display showing present-day desert wildlife.

We went to the Park's Visitor Center and walked around in the desert--we've been to the visitor center several times but it's been over 20 years since the last time. We learned a lot about this, our favorite desert, that we didn't know before--like the fact that this sand, dirt and rock has washed down from the Grand Canyon! And that years ago the place was a fertile grazing ground for lots of mastodons, camels, zebras, and other now-extinct mammals--many fossils are found here. We relearned the names of all the cactus--teddy bear cholla, barrel cactus, prickly pear, etc. Very neat place. We love the pastel colors and the corrugated mountains that form the backdrop for the desert floor.

We went to town one day and had coffee and a muffin, and Carol did some shopping. Borrego Springs has several more eating places now than it used to, but it's still a quiet, friendly little town and remains one of our favorite places.

When we left the campground, we drove the back roads to Oceanside, north of San Diego, to visit our friends Cindy and Tom. We stopped in the little mountain town of Julian to pick up a couple of their famous pies (apple and rhubarb/strawberry)--forgetting how busy that little town gets this time of year! Jack drove the van around while Carol jumped out to stand in line for the pies!

Tom and Cindy have recently purchased a printing business, an AlphaGraphics franchise, so we met them at their new office and got the grand tour. Very exciting to hear all that they're involved in, and their plans for the future. We then adjourned to their home for late lunch and pie (a la mode, of course). As delicious as we remembered it to be! And made even more delicious by the setting, their beautiful upper deck with ocean view. We talked and laughed and caught up on our lives since we'd last seen each other, while the sun went down over the ocean. Ahhh. Great visit with good buddies. We spent the night and headed out early the next morning when they left for work.

Cindy and Tom, looking good!

Old friends reunited!

We had decided to go back to Agua Caliente County Park for a few more days of desert sun-soaking (and hot springs soaking), since we'd enjoyed it so much when we were there a few days ago, before starting on our journey east. Plus Carol had a book to edit and Jack wanted to do some more work on the novel he's writing. Since we were there during the week, we had no problem finding a good campsite, near the pools and with some shade over the picnic table. (This park apparently fills up on weekends and we understand why. It's pretty close to paradise, in our estimation.)

Beautiful Agua Caliente campground tucked into the desert landscape.

The water from the springs runs many places in the campground, and the fan palms always find the water.

We had a quiet several days of working and soaking. Carol had fun birding--saw several new birds for our list: California thrasher with its large curved beak, and a ladderbacked woodpecker. Lots of the silky black desert crested flycatchers called phainopeplas, and lots of roadrunners too.

Crested phainopepla, a flycatcher.

Mr. Roadrunner--didn't see Wiley Coyote while there but heard him.

The place has no cell signal at all, so we were there over Election Day, completely disconnected from the world, and had no idea how the election had gone. Late the next day we were soaking in the pools and some new campers came in with news from the outside world. I (Carol) asked nonchalantly who the new president was (thinking that I knew the answer) and when the guy answered "Trump" we nearly dropped our teeth! We had managed to stay completely away from any election news or coverage since July--except that we had noticed in our travels, which were almost exclusively in rural or small-town areas with very little venturing near big cities, that the Trump posters outnumbered Hillary posters about 10 to 1, or maybe even more.

Finally we drug ourselves away from the hot springs and headed east on I-8 and then I-10, toward Tucson, to visit friends there. Leroy (Lee) Krumm was a classmate of Jack's from the Coast Guard Academy and he and his wife Patti now live in a lovely desert community, with a golf course and lots of other great amenities for "senior living." The desert near Tucson is remarkable for the large and varied saguaro cactus everywhere. It also has beautiful rugged mountains that provide a scenic backdrop to the desert floor. We had a great time telling/hearing Coast Guard stories and getting the tour of their beautiful surroundings. Carol even got to drive Patti's cute little Miata convertible--fun! (And Lee tooled Jack around in his golf cart.) Lee is a VERY funny guy and Patti holds her own quite well as a great storyteller, so it was a lively and hilarious visit--so good to reconnect with old friends! Thanks, folks!

Leroy, Patti and Jack. Love that roadkill apron!

Patti, Jack and Carol.

Nice convertible! (Two blondes not bad, either....)

We planned to head for I-40 to continue our drive east and Lee gave us a great tip for a scenic way to get there. It went through a dramatic canyon (the Salt River Canyon) that rivaled the Grand Canyon for scenery. We stopped for photos, of course. The canyon runs through two Apache reservations, the home of Geronimo. Beautiful, striking place!

Salt River Canyon, which we drove through.

Apache reservation, home of Geronimo.

Looking down on the river from pedestrian bridge.

View at near-sunset.

Now stopped in a town called Show Low, AZ (the name is related to a poker hand that one of the founders had, to win the place from his partner--the main street is named Deuce of Clubs). Love the West!