Anza Borrego Tales

Monday: (04/05) We started the day with mostly cloudy sky.


There was a huge rainbow that hung around West of our campsite touching down near the Visitors Center and the mountain where the Alcoholic trail started. We may have to head out to see if Pegleg's gold is at the end of the rainbow.

While there were thirty campers here for the Pegleg Liar's Contest, there are less than half a dozen this morning. Nice to have some more room!

Breakfast was leftovers: chicken, coleslaw, corned beef hash, half a ham sandwich, and? The refrigerator is much roomier.

We headed out on a driving tour.


We stopped for a short hike at Little Surprise Canyon. It's a short canyon with some interesting geological features but even more interesting flowers.


The subrosa flowers were nice and there were even a few nice natural bouquets as well. It was a nice short hike which was good because it was raining slightly.


After the hike we continued up highway S22 then highway S2 the Highway 79 to Santa Ysabel. We stopped at the Casino for lunch. The restaurant probably has a great view but since it was raining and the clouds were hanging around the mountain top there was nothing to see. I had the daily special chicken fried steak breakfast while Lou had a New York steak dinner. Everything was very good and the service excellent. We've never been to a friendlier Indian casino. Every employee greeted us.

Next stop was the main reason for the trip, the Julian Apple Pie factory. We picked up a pie and then looked around downtown Julian, while it rained heavily. It's a nice little tourist trap known, and rightfully so, for apple pies.

Santa Ysabel and Julian are way up on top of 4000' plus mountains while Borrego Springs, where we are camped, down at 630 feet. Quite a difference. As we headed down the hill, the rain stopped quickly and when we got back home it wasn't raining and hadn't rained much if at all. The wind was blowing, as it does much of the time. Our first order of business was to enjoy a slice of the Julian apple pie. It's a tough job but someone has to be sure they are good.

We watched the clouds hang on top of the mountains, probably raining in Julian. They never came further our way but just disipated at sunset. Weird!

Dinner was just cottage cheese an peaches an a little ham. Nothing much needed due to our late pie.

Tuesday: (04/06) Oatmeal and bananas for breakfast. Today was an at home day. Lou brought out the kiln and fired some dolls. I  tinkered with the computer all day.

Toasted ham and cheese English muffins for lunch. I did go by the sanitary dump at the Palm Canyon campground. We're now good for another week.

For dinner Lou fixed Swedish meat balls in gravy with potato salad and corn on the cob.


After dinner we took a short walk up the hill behind our camp and along the rim a ways then back home. It provides some good views of the valley.


And there were flowers.

Earthquakes In The Wind

Sunday: (04/04) We are having fairly strong winds this afternoon and the RV is swaying with the wind but about 3:40 this afternoon there was a bit stronger rocking that lasted over a minute and didn't seem to be like the rocking from the wind. It turns out it wasn't. There was a strong 7.2 earthquake just about 100 miles south of our location here in Anza Borrego and about 70 miles from our old campsite near Yuma. The earthquake is reported on the USGS website as being located about 40 miles South of Calexico, Ca. Pretty close! It must be even more interesting to people who aren't as used to a little shaking as we are. At 7.2 it was at least twice as strong as the 1989 6.9 earthquake near watsonville that brought down the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and collapsed Highway 80 bridges in Oakland. We lived in San Jose at the time and all that it bothered in our house was two video tapes that fell rom the shelf. We were between the epicenter in Watsonville and the damage in Oakland. Much of Santa Cruz and Watsonville, cities South of us, were demolished in that quake, as well, so we have to hope Mexico fairs well.

One advantage to an RV is that it can rock without damage. We always try to have the water tank full, the waste tanks empty, and the gas tank full when the RV is at home, just in case. We also have food in it. is this just California thinking?

Anza Borrego, Alcholic's Pass Trail

Sunday: (04/04) Easter Sunday. I fixed leftover corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast.



After breakfast, we drove out to hike the Alcoholic's Pass trail.


There were lots of flowers along the trail, and a few bugs. The bug on the right looks a little like a lady bug, but not. Just colorful.


This is what most of the cholla flowers I've seen before are like, a yellowish green.


On the far side of the pass at the foot of the trail I saw what looked like a couple of beavertail cactus flower groups. They both looked complete with lots of flowers. I took a picture of the first group then went over to the second and was surprised by the fact that it wasn't a beavertail cactus but was a hedgehog. A hedgehog looks like a bushy cholla. Giving it a cute name like hedgehog isn't enough to impress me but it's flowers do. There are many types of cholla and around here there are two basically different types, tall ones and short bushy ones. I try to avoid getting to close to any of them. The hedgehog flowers were on what looks like a short bushy cholla. The flowers look like a beavertail flower except they are larger and more open and a deeper color.


There was also a desert lily along the trail which some nice hiker had placed a rock wall around to keep people from stepping on it. In the wash on the far side I saw a group of small lavender flowers that just looked interesting.


These white flowers were on a bush at the beginning of the trail. On the far side of the mountain I also found a white mushroom which seems odd in the desert.


On the way up to the pass we saw this horned lizard (horned toad). I haven't seen one in 50 years. We had them around my home in Bakersfield when I was a kid. Seeing this one made the hike worthwhile by itself. They are so cute. This has certainly been a reptile sighting trip.


Here is a desert iguana I saw on the way back to the car. They are all over the place along with all sorts of lizards.

When we returned to the car, we headed further up Coyote Canyon stopping at Desert Garden for lunch. We had some of Lou's ham sandwiches. After lunch we continued up the valley but had to turn around at the first river crossing. Not much water but two pot holes one in the water and one just beyond that were deeper than our ground clearance and unavoidable. There was also a pretty steep rise out of the creek at the same time. All that and the fact a pickup, with more clearance than we have, was being pulled out of the sand just before the crossing. Some other day.

We relaxed at home most of the afternoon. The wind picked up as we arrived back and was so strong, we had to go inside. My laptop computer kept trying to blow away. That wouldn't be good. The winds were gusting over 30mph by my estimate and shaking the RV but the earthquake in Mexico was still felt quite easily due to a good long shake.

Dinner was leftover chicken, broccoli, coleslaw and re-fried beans.

I've been having and continue to have problems publishing photos to this website. Something seems to be wrong with the server but it's hard to isolate the problem. May be my computer or the satellite Internet link. Either way, it's so much work that there may be no further pictures until we return home.

Palm Canyon Trail

Saturday: (04/03) We got up early, no breakfast this morning. We headed toward Palm Canyon but saw a fleamarket setting up down by Christmas Circle, the traffic circle  downtown. (I couldn't have survived here in my working life, there are no traffic signals here.) Lou needed a look around. They do start early here, it was probably not much after
7am.


We then continued on to Palm Canyon. We were the second car in the parking area.


Along the way we saw lots of flowers. Purple tube flowers and small purple flowers.


Even some yellow poppies and some small blue/purple flowers.


The hike is only 1.5 miles out to the falls by the Palm Grove.


We enjoyed some granola bars and jerky by the waterfall.


Lou relaxed there while I continued on up a mile or two further. It is a beautiful area. I'll have to return and hike further up some other time.


The granite colored frog wasn't easy to see if it wasn't moving. It matched the rocks it was on perfectly. There were quite a few small lizards as well and a few bigger iguanas.


The long legged spider was interesting with hairy knees. There was a huge bee hive on the side of a cliff on the way up. There was quite a crowd that had come up later in the day and the parking area was full when we got back.

We stopped in town and had our lunch at Carmelita'sMexican Grill again. Lou had a chili relleno, I had a combination chili relleno and a beef burrito.

Dinner was cottage cheese and peaches with a little coleslaw for me and Lou ate her leftovers from last night's dinner.

Pegleg Smith Liars Contest

Saturday: (04/03) At sundown we went to the Pegleg Smith Liars Contest here in our campground at Pegleg In Anza Borrego State Park. This contest has been going for 37 years now and is the oldest story telling event in the country. Pegleg is long gone having died in 1861 but his memory goes on, though what is to be remembered doesn't have much fact. The contest is to tell a story about pegleg and his lost gold mine and mention as much about the Anza Borrego area as possible. There were a dozen or so liars who spoke to the group and frankly, they were all good liars. A couple that was billed as Mr and Mrs Smith won the event this year with a team told story. My favorite was the story told in verse. There were also three youth entries that told interesting lies linking old Pegleg to Starbucks, Rubics Cubes, and texting.

The event lasted over two and a half hours and was held with a campfire as the stage light with the liar on the opposite side from the audience. There was quite a bit of wind and it got quite cool but the audience remained interested throughout. We may have to return for this event that is always held the first week of April as close the April Fools Day as possible.

Anza Borrego Desert SP, Pegleg CG

Friday: (04/02) We headed North on road S2 until we came to Highway 78 then East on 78 to road S3 then North some more to Borrego Springs.

We stopped and looked around a Farmers market in the park in the middle of the traffic circle in town then continued out to the Visitor Center. We picked up some information and asked some questions and learned where to camp free nearby.


We chose the Pegleg area to camp just Northeast of the airport. Close enough to the center of everything. around the valley.

Lou fixed a spinach, onion, bleu cheese. mandarin orange and dried cranberry salad for lunch.

We drove back to town for dinner at Carmelita's Mexican Grill in the Mall. We both ordered combinations. I ordered a beef burrito, a chicken enchilada and a chili relleno. Lou ordered a tomale, a chicken enchilada and a chili relleno. When our orders arrived, Lou's was wrong, mine looked OK but later I found the burrito was missing and the enchilada was cheese. It was all good though so we just changed the order. Lou's eventually arrived correct. Everything was excellent so it didn't matter what we got. We're not too picky and share anyway. The chili relleno were outstanding.


Of course, there are lots of flowers nearby at our campsite. There is a trail behind our camp that leads up and over the mountain that we'll have to hike before we leave.