El Centro to Borrego Springs, CA

(Borrego Springs, CA) 

Tools of the trade for a travelling blogger:

My little Acer computer, my USB connection to my EVO android phone,  our Wilson cellular signal booster, and of course some Two Buck Chuck chardonnay. Ken has the same little computer so that we can swap out batteries if one of us over-extends and we also have the same phones making it easier to share apps, battery chargers, etc.,   We both use the PDAnet app for accessing the internet and have had very good luck to-date in having adequate signal.  I like use the signal booster anytime we don’t have max bars and I’m on the internet since it just makes things go fast.

Seated before this set of tools,  is how you would find me around sunset most days at Rio Bend RV Park. 

We really enjoyed just being at this park.  The neighbors were friendly,  it was a comfortable place to walk the dogs or let them play in the enclosed area for them.  So, we decided on Friday to make it a preparation-for-the-desert day rather than do any further exploring.

Our neighbors, Dale and Karen had invited us to the park fish fry that evening.  The food was very good and we really enjoyed the company.  It’s strange what a small world this RV community can be.  One of the gentleman sitting with us (and darned if we can remember his name!) had a sweatshirt on it that read ‘Thunder Bay’ had worked that summer with Linda and Howard up in Michigan, parked right next to them.

We were surprised to find out that Joann and Doug had driven all of the way to the park from Benson, AZ.  We dropped by their rig and made our plan for departure the next day.  They had a pretty tough travel day considering a variety of things that went wrong and a tough time finding any place with full hookups to stop for the night.  Since Rio Bend did not require checkout until noon we decided to make it a late departure on Saturday.

Once again we were in for a drive through spectacular scenery with Doug in the lead.

We were amazed at the RV’s scattered haphazardly across the desert.  Seeing this in Quartzsite was expected but we really hadn’t realized how many folks bookdock all over the Southwest this time of year.

We pulled over about 5 miles before Borrego Springs on Rockhouse Road, a dirt road headed toward the mountains. We unhooked the jeep and the four of us checked out the area and selected a spot.

The ground was a bit soft and so we did a lot of moving around until Ken was comfortable that we were level and solid. 

I’m not use to finding flowers like this on my walks in January!

We were invited to Jo and Fred Wishnie’s for dinner and took off for the other side of Borrego Springs just before 4pm. 

We had a wonderful evening.  The Wishnie’s provides a great tortilla soup with all the fixin’s, corn pudding and an absolutely wonderful homemade apple pie. We also met little BooBoo the adorable Wishnie shitzhu.  Before we left, the ladies made plans for a hiking trip on Sunday.

It’s now Sunday morning and Ken and I didn’t have a very good night’s sleep.  The winds became really gusty overnight and kept waking us up.   It’s suppose to get worse as the day goes on with 45mph gust.  Ken is thinking we are getting those already.

I’m not sure if the hike is still on but we’ll just play it by ear.  We certainly can’t complain if this is the first day all month where the weather impacts our plans!

As I worked on this blog, I shot this picture of the sunrise from where I sat at the table.

Ken was on the other side of the rig and got this shot of the rising sun setting the mountains to glowing.

Hugs, C