Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Wednesday, 30 January
Being new to Pacific time, we were up plenty early again. This also gave us an opportunity to catch the rising sun lighting the hills behind the campground.
Golf today was at Del Rio Country Club in Brawley, CA. We selected it as it was the only golf course in this part of California. Pretty discriminating, huh? We arrived plenty early, did our typical warmup on the practice range, and got off 30 minutes before our tee time. We decided to walk the course, and were able to use the only two push carts the golf course had to rent. We were behind a men’s group of three four-somes, so it was not as fast as just the two of us. The guys were playing well, so the wait was pretty tolerable.
We both hit very nice tee shots on the first hole, then struggled. It was just that kind of day. Darrell made one birdie which helped make up for the ball he lost in a tree, and the three sand traps he found. Kris also made birdie on the same hole - having missed making a hole-in-one by only 11 inches. Neither of us felt we played as well as we thought we should. Technically, Darrell had to buy, but it was more of a consolation treat for both of us. We did enjoy a warm, mostly sunny day, where the high temperature got up to the middle 70s.
After golf, we made our way into Brawley for grocery shopping at Walmart, and the consoling Starbucks at the other end of the same parking lot.
Being early afternoon, Darrell settled on making our way to the Visitor Center at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. His research on things to do in the state park had not come up with a lot that we could do. At the Visitor Center, we watched the video “Year in the Desert” which was well done. Much of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is only accessible by 4WD, making it quite popular for off-roading. And quite inaccessible for Sprinty. After collecting some information at the Visitor Center, we drove the half mile to Palm Canyon campground to see if we could get a campsite for the night. As expected, all the sites with hookups were booked. The Ranger gave us three choices in the dry camping loops, and let us go pick which one we wanted.
As we drove through the campground to look at the three sites offered, we saw a lot of Class Bs. More than we usually see in a campground. The 25’ limit on RVs in the dry camping spots likely contributed. We selected a nice back-in site. The campground was nearly full.
Thursday, 31 January
With rain forecast to start in the early afternoon and the golf options being pricey, we made today a hiking and travel day. We enjoyed a pretty sunrise, and moved Sprinty from his campsite to the Palm Canyon trailhead parking lot.
The Palm Canyon hike was fairly easy, with minor rock scrambling as you neared the area where the stand of palm trees were.
Along the way, we saw some creative rock formations:
There we also a lot of downed palm trees. In 2004, there was a significant storm system that caused a flash flood in the canyon, and hundreds of palm trees were destroyed.
With an early start, we did not see many people on the trail. However, anytime we did meet anyone, the main question was, had we seen any of the big horn sheep? We learned from a group that went up for sunrise, that they saw some earlier in the morning. We did not see any until we got back to the parking lot and saw several,people,looking up in the rocks above the parking lot and pointing out the sheep. We saw five big horn sheep working their way down the slope towards the creek we hiked along to the palm grove.
Another hike that would have been nice to do was a slot canyon. The description indicated it rivaled the ones with find in Utah and Arizona. But it was half a mile or more down a 4WD road. So we had to leave that for a future trip.
After the hike, we checked out a few of the 130 metal sculptures that are part of The Sky Art Sculptures of Borrego Springs. The artworks range from prehistoric mammals to historical characters, fanciful dinosaurs, and a 350-foot-long fanciful serpent.
The late Dennis Avery (whose father founded Avery Dennison Corp.), land owner of Galleta Meadows Estates in Borrego Springs envisioned the idea of adding 'free standing art' to his property with original steel welded sculptures created by 'Perris Jurassic Park' owner/artist/welder Ricardo Breceda based in Perris, California.
If you would like a good video,tour of our hike and metal sculpture visit, check out this YouTube video which inspired us to visit Anza-Borrego:
We then headed west via California Highway 78, which was a twisty, windy road not recommended for semi-trailer trucks. We passed through Julian, CA, then turned north to Warner Springs. In Warner Springs, we made a stop at Warner Springs Ranch to check out the golf course as a possible for tomorrow. We learned that the Ranch used to be private and was quite popular with the Hollywood crowd. Today, it is operated as a resort and is tryin to make a come back.
Our destination for the night was the Jojoba Hills Escapees Resort in Aguanga, CA. One of several Escapee Co-ops (members owned and operated), they allow Escapees members to stay. We opted for a dry camping spot for $7.50/night. Just as we were arriving, the forecast rain started.
There were only three other RVs in the dry camping area. And one of three WiFi access points was in the dry camping area. We enjoyed great WiFi for the evening, using it to catch up on tech maintenance chores we usually reserve for home WiFi: backup of our iOS devices, app updates, iOS updates, video streaming to name a few. Good rainy day chores.
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