Edge of disaster!

Just when everything seems to be falling into place ……….

We have had a longstanding appointment at Findlay RV to get some deferred maintenance done on Colectiva. However, with Robin’s wrist fracture and the orthopedic surgeon convention in Vegas, we could not get a follow-up appointment set with her surgeon until the following Monday. But then it all pulled together and we were able to get an early Monday appointment, and still be back in Vegas on Tuesday for Colectiva’s appointment.

So it seemed …………

We set out from Borrego in time to reach Palm Desert by maybe 6. The only realistic way to go is via the Salton Sea, which is an interesting story in itself. In 1905, engineers of the California Development Company attempted to increase the water flow to into the area for farming by building channels from the Colorado River. The water surge overwhelmed the canals and ended up flowing into the Salton basin for over two years, creating the Salton Sea which can measure 15 miles by 35 miles.

In the post-depression era, development was hot. The Salton Sea was going to be the interior mecca due to its very temperate winters and the huge body of water. But it soon became apparent that with there being no outlet from the sea and continuous evaporation that the salinity would continue to increase. Soon massive fish populations were dying, and the entire area adopted the stagnant smell of dead and rotting fish. As a result, people who had built there abandoned the properties that they couldn’t sell, and all the developer infrastructure was left to waste away.

Today when you drive through Salton City, you see block after block of developed residential roadways – however you see very few homes, and even fewer of those that have not been abandoned and boarded up. You can see the canal systems where residents would have had their boat docks, but such never came to fruition. It is all a vast wasteland, with no real prospect for change. It is either sad to see so many dreams crushed – or pathetic to see what devastation can be caused by wanton and vicious speculation – can’t decide which I feel – maybe both.

Oops, off track a bit – anyway, the first 4 or 5 miles heading West out of Salton City on the Borrego Salton Seaway Higway (San Diego County 22) is the worst road I have ever been on – you would swear you must be driving in Eastern Canada. The first two miles are just like the frost heaves we experienced in Alaska, except that they are continuous – poor Colectiva was porpoising like mad. Then the next couple of miles are the most rough I have ever been on – like driving on really bad cobblestone. On our way to Borrego, our friend Ron at about 4 miles in was just about to turn around and find another way to get into the Park when the road smoothed out a bit and wasn’t too bad the rest of the way.

Well, on the way back, we hit that bad area and I slowed down to 45 just to try to keep the fillings in my teeth. Then “BLAM!!!!!!” – a complete blowout of what I later learned was the front passenger tire. Despite the surprise and all the horrors I have read about catastrophic tire failure in a motorhome, I really didn’t have too much trouble with Colectiva – shut off the cruise control, slowed down gradually and pulled off the road onto the just barely sufficient shoulder – thank goodness though, because many of the highways we drive have no shoulders whatsoever.

We called our Good Sam Emergency Roadside Service – even though we were only 3.9 miles west of a city in California and on a California highway, she couldn’t locate us – kept saying the coordinates I was giving her were showing Pasadena, which we were hundreds of miles from. After desperately trying to get help from Good Sam and getting nowhere – at one time they said they may have found someone 60 miles away that could come out and help, but they never called back – I just drove into Salton City to see what I could find.

There, in back of the AM PM, was a mobile repair truck out of Coachella replacing a flat on a motorhome. I had the Woman call the phone number on the truck, and I talked to the gentleman when he was finished. He went back to Coachella and got a tire to fit Colectiva, came back, and got us on our way. It wasn’t until 2:30 AM that we rolled into the Emerald Desert RV Resort in Palm Desert, but at least we were there, more or less in one piece.

Talk to you soon!

Hiking fiend!

Despite having a shattered wrist encased in a hard splint and requiring a sling, the Woman would not be denied. When we had originally made the plans for Anza Borrego, she had figured out all the hikes that she wanted to go on while there – the Park is so big and the terrain so diverse that you can find about any kind of hike you would like there. The Woman had big plans.

Well, the first day post-surgery was a little tame. We checked out the visitor center, watched a couple of movies, did some short nature trails and did some geocaching. Robin was in quite a bit of pain, so didn’t really want to push it too much.

But the next day we tackled the Palm Canyon hike. It was rated as an easy hike, but after getting along up the trail a bit, we found out that a fair bit of rock scrambling was required. At first, Robin was inclined to turn around, but I told her she could use my shoulder, or we would walk hand in hand if needed so that she could get over the occasional scrambling. As it turned out, she nearly made it to standing in the midst of the palm grove – maybe about 100 yards shy – the last 100 yards or so required one to cross the stream twice, stepping on rocks that moved as you went. She could see all she wanted of the actual grove, and was happy just to have handled the mile and a half in. I was impressed.

The next day, the first of our two hikes was a ba!! buster. Back in the 1930’s, the US military used calcite in the manufacture of gun sights for its air fleet. Calcite was hard to find. At the top of a mountain, in what is now the Northern edge of Anza Borrego, a significant vein of calcite was discovered. To meet the needs of the military, the veins were strip mined until 1945 when an artificial substance was discovered to take the place of calcite in bomb sights. During the time it was mined, the Polaroid Company managed the mining operations.

The mine was 2 miles in from highway – and about 1500 feet up! The hiking trail actually followed the old mining road that was used to get the ore down from the mine back in the days. The trail was not only steep, but had a lot of loose rock and sand – and the sun was blisteringly hot! But the Woman persevered, and made it all the way. What a champion – even those in the group that had the use of both arms for balance and were not wearing a hot, black sling were weary by the end of that hike.

We decided to let the heat of the day pass a bit, and let the sun angle drop a bit before tackling the next hike. We hiked the Palm Slot Canyon Trail. The trail followed the wash through some of the narrowest canyon walls we have seen in a while. Again, Robin was required to scramble up and down some rocks, and this is when the patented butt slide maneuver was invented. When the slot got too narrow for the Woman to get footing without risking bumping her arm in the sling, she would just sit on the slanted rock, working her feet through and sliding her butt as she did. The move really did work well.

We had maybe hiked a couple of miles when we hit a rock wall that would require a four or five foot climb to get over. That was when Robin decided that maybe a couple miles of slot canyon was sufficient. Ron and Teresa forged ahead a bit, but then came back and said they agreed that it might be a good time to head back – apparently the canyon above the wall widened back out and was not nearly as pretty as what we had been hiking through. So we headed back through what was now the fully shaded canyon, getting a difference glimpse of its wonders.

But the next day the Woman rocked! Our first hike was 2 miles in, then back. At 1 ½ miles in there was a huge boulder with a considerable number of pictographs on it. Scientists believe they were left by the Kumeyaay or Agave people. They are not certain just how old they are, but believe the Kumeyaay occupied these lands over 2,000 years ago. This find alone was worth the hike.

We continued on the last half mile and came to Smuggler’s Canyon. As we approached what seemed to be back of a large enclosed corral formed by the canyon walls, we realized that there was a narrow slot that made its w

ay through the very back. As we made our way back, we found ourselves on the top of a sheer wall with at least a hundred foot drop – you could see the water stains all over the precipice from when the spring melts come cruising down and over this edge. It must be pretty spectacular when the water comes flying through.

The view of the entire valley was wonderful from this vantage point. We weren’t exactly sure what direction we were looking, but it was so splendid, we didn’t really care. Little did we know that we would be looking out over the area of our third hike of the day.

On our way back from Smuggler’s Canyon, we stopped to say goodbye to the amazing pictographs. A German couple that we had seen in the Canyon were there poking around, and asked if we wanted to see the rattlesnake – to which we said “Sure!” Well, when they showed us where the snake was curled up under the edge of a boulder, Ron realized that he had been standing next to that exact spot admiring the pictographs on the way down. Good thing the rattler couldn’t be bothered to strike!

The next hike was short – maybe a mile in. Apparently the Kumeyaay lived throughout the area, and this particular canyon they found dwelling. Evidence of food storage and food preparation is scattered throughout the canyon. Rock dwellings likely inhabited by the Kumeyaay were everywhere you looked. And near each of the likely dwellings were grinding pits – knows by the folk of the day as Morteros – essentially mortars carved by sheer force in the surface of a smooth stone. Sometimes there were multiple grinding pits on the same stone surface – indicating large scale food preparation going on at some point in the distant past. Scientists believe the Kumeyaay used these areas over 2,000 years ago!

Our third hike of the day was only two miles round trip, but was certainly the hardest. Back in the 1930’s during the depression, a renaissance man, born Roy Bennet Richards in 1889 in Australia, could not find employment. In 1930, he and his wife, Tanya, found this area formerly inhabited by the Kumeyaay to their liking. They checked out the entire region, and when they found this spot on the top of the Ghost Mountain, they decided that was where they were going to live. Over time, they built a house, hauling all the material necessary up the steep 1 mile hike from the closest spot to Ghost Mountain where they could get their Model T Ford.

When completed, the Roy and Tanya named their haven Yaquitepec. They lived here for nearly 20 years. During that time, Roy would hike down Ghost Mountain and drive the slow 20 some odd miles to Julian, a quaint mining town (an artist haven now that is worth a visit), to get supplies and pick up their mail. Then all he had gathered had to be hauled up the one mile climb to the home. Early on Roy hauled up water he supplied from Julian – later they built a system of collectors and storage tanks to nearly eliminate their need for outside water.

During that time, Roy and Tanya sired 3 children, Rider (1934), Rudyard (1937) and Victoria (1940). The children were raised at Yaquitepec and educated by their parents. When Roy would venture monthly into Julian for supplies, the children would haul them up to the house. Tanya and the children only ventured into Julian every six months or so, and never formally attended school. To make money to buy supplies, Roy wrote poetry and articles about he and Tanya’s elegant experiment on Ghost Mountain, much of which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and other popular papers of the time. To make his writing seem more poetic and mysterious, he assumed the nom de plume of Marshall South. Eventually, Marshall began spending more time in Julian than he did at Yaquitepec, Tanya tired of the hard life, and Tanya left Yaquitepec with her children and divorced Marshall. All 3 children ended up having very successful lives.

What is left of the home still sits atop Ghost Mountain. As we came to a flat area in the ascent, we thought we had gone maybe ¾ of the way, and saw where we likely needed to end up, already just a tad weary of the climb. But lo and behold, only a few steps later and we saw the house – just a doorway frame and some crumbling adobe walls. It won’t be that many more years before the Mountain reclaims the land that the South’s lived on and the home they lived in.

We could still see their water gathering and storage system. Rather than the adobe used to build the house which will eventually melt back into the Mountain, the water system was built using the concrete that Marshall and the family hauled up from the Model T. It will be a much longer time before the evidence of this part of their lives is completely erased.

The hike was good, although the most of the scrambling of any of the hiking we had done in Anza Borrego. We enjoyed the reward of Yaquitepec, the rusting box spring, the clearly evident stove and fireplace remains, and especially the views. From the areas just steps from the South’s door front, the entirety of the valley lies below. It is really dramatic.

All in all our visit to Anza Borrego was a great success. The name Anza Borrego comes from the Spanish explorer de Anza who first explored this area in the 1700’s. Borrego means lamb in Spanish, referring to the baby big horn sheep that dot the area in the spring. While we did see all kinds of wild flowers and animal life, we got shut out on the big horn sheep. We will have to come back some day and try again.

One last tidbit of local lore caught our attention while we were having fun geocaching. We had driving Peg leg Road and had no idea how it got its name. Well, Thomas L. “Pegleg” Smith was a prospector, story teller, and general conman in the area during the latter part of his life from 1801 to 1860. He reveled in telling all that would listen that he had discovered a massive gold strike in the area. The problem was that in his old age, his memory was failing him, and he could not remember where the mine was that contained all his wealth.

Apparently the story caught on and people did come to the Borrego valley, not really to prospect but rather to search for Pegleg’s mine. While people have speculated over the decades that it is likely relatively close to the site of the monument, nobody really knows – and nobody has found it!

Well, tomorrow is the Woman’s follow up surgeon appointment back in Palm Springs. I guess I will wait to see is he thinks things look like they are healing well before I mention to him the 30 some odd miles of rock scrambling she has been doing.

Talk to you soon!

Anza Borrego Desert State Park

We moved a little bit South to visit the town of Borrego Springs and Anza Borrego Desert State Park. The Park is the largest state park in California and the second only to New York’s Adirondack State Park in the entire United States. The Park is primarily comprised of the section of the Colorado Desert that exists in California. It is immense!

We found out that the name of the Park is historic. In the late 1700’s, Juan Bautista de Anza, one of the more known Spanish explorers, toured this valley many times on his explorations of the central and northern California regions. We also learned that Borrego is Spanish for lamb, as in the lamb of a Big Horn Sheep, one of the more prolific species in the area. We haven’t spotted any yet on our wanderings, but we are holing out hope!

Because the Woman is broken, we are not sure how much hiking we will be getting in, but we did manage to get in some really good lookin around in the Borrego Springs area. Back in the mid-1990’s, a wealthy Californian Dennis Avery was buying up depressed real estate in the wake of the savings and loan crash. He did not particularly desire a bunch of desert, but he was offered a deal he couldn’t pass up, and acquired a contiguous 3 square miles of land in Borrego Springs.

One day when he was trying to decide what to do with this land, he spotted a 30 foot tall metal Tyrannosaurus Rex leaning over a fence along I-215 outside of Riverside California. He got off the freeway and discovered Perris Jurassic Park – part welding shop, part sculpture garden, owned by Ricardo Breceda. Breceda was an artist, particularly a metal sculptor, who was obsessed with dinosaurs. After many discussions, Avery agreed to commission Breceda to create dinosaur art to be placed on the land owned by Avery in Borrego Springs.

What started out as a project with promise was soon out of control. Avery found that the art on his land did nothing to hurt the prospect of development and ultimate profit from his investment. Breceda who had begun creating creatures whose fossils have actually been discovered in the valley, moved on to other creatures who are home in the area, to mythical creatures, to other whimsical creations, all with a very distinct creative flair.

We ended up spending a couple of days killing two birds with one stone. We roamed the Borrego Springs suburbs searching for these spectacular pieces of art. As geocaching enthusiasts tend to gravitate to this kind of attraction, we found that there were many caches that had been hidden in these pieces of art – bonus! Art hunting and geocaching all in one fell swoop!

We thoroughly enjoyed our couple of days of jointly hunting art and caches. We now understand that there are well over 300 pieces of metal art in the Borrego Springs valley, and we believe we have seen them all. If you ever get near this area, it is well worth the visit.

Talk to you soon!

We're both bionic now!

The surgery went procedurally well – no problems with the anesthesia and such. But the surgeon found that the Woman’s wrist was far more shattered than the original X-rays would have suggested. But he indicated that while the titanium plate was a bit larger than he expected, he was able to secure it well on both the joint and the bone, and that he felt that the procedure would provide a very strong wrist once healed.

So, the Woman will not experience the joys of airport security as I have for many years now. Full screenings and pat downs every time she takes a flight. We can commiserate with each other now at the TSA areas.

Talk to you soon!

Change in plans - senior way of life!

Well, when you get to senior status, you stop playing tennis, and start playing a made up game called Pickleball – because it takes less running! Well, we learned that Pickleball is not without its own risks.

The Woman was playing in a beginner’s instructional group at the RV Park we are staying at. On one of the shots, she was backing up to get a shot when she stumbled and fell, and of course tried to stop herself by putting our her arm – we all know you are not supposed to do that, but instincts just kick in when those unexpected events occur. The force of her fall on her outthrust arm resulted in a severe fracture of her wrist – ended up in an ambulance visit to the emergency room at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Desert CA.

The good news is there are good orthopedic physicians in the Palm Springs area, and the emergency room physician arranged a visit to one of them for the day after the fall. The bad news is that the visit to the orthopedic physician confirmed that the break was a bad one, and one that required surgery to repair.

The orthopedic physician said we were actually in luck – if we wanted to, he had a cancellation of a scheduled surgery tomorrow and we could take that spot. Our last set of tickets for the tennis matches were for tomorrow, so we asked if there was any way to schedule the surgery for next week. The orthopedic physician told us it was unlikely that we could get the surgery done anywhere in the country next week - the biggest convention for orthopedic surgeons in the world was in Vegas all next week and he expected pretty much every orthopedic surgeon in the country would be there. So, given the need for some urgency in getting the surgery done, we decided we would forgo our last visit to the Tennis Gardens and get the Woman fixed up.

We were bummed when we found out that Serena Williams would be playing tomorrow and we would miss her – she might be the only other player that we really wanted to see but hadn’t yet. But as it turned out, she doesn’t play until tomorrow night and we have the day tickets – so we would not have seen her anyway. We are sad about missing our last chance at the Indian Wells matches live, and one last time to see both Rafa and Roger – we certainly have had a great time to couple of days that we attended. But we need to get the Woman all fixed up, and that priority comes first.

Hopefully the surgery goes off the way it should and the Woman will be on the mend.

Talk to you soon!

 

First timer bonus!

As I said, when we picked our 3 days for tickets, we had no way of predicting who we might see. Well today, we got royally rewarded!

Our first match was again in Stadium 2, so we got a very intimate experience. The first Scot to win Wimbledon, Andy Murray, was pitted against the Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. While Mannarino put up an admirable effort, the champion Murray showed his colors and was able to defeat him in straight sets.

Next we watched a 3 set match between Romanian Simona Halep and Carla Suarez Navarro. The only match we have seen so far to go the distance, Halep lost the first set and then went on to dominate Navarro for the rest of the match – it was really top notch.

Our third match of the day was no big deal – Frenchman Giles Simon against the Woman’s favorite tennis player of all time – Rafeal Nadal! The tennis was spectacular, the excitement riveting – but the best part was when Rafa changed his shirt between the first and second set – I thought the Woman was going to swoon!

Our third match was appropriate for the Palm Springs area – senior tennis royalty of Roger Federer against young American big man, Jack Sock from Omaha Nebraska – what could be more heart of America than that! While the dude is old, Mr. Federer had no problem dispatching Mr. Sock in two sets.

So far, we have guessed at tickets and we have seen Djokovic, Nadal, Murray and Federer – God, I love Indian Wells!

Talk to you soon!

Our first exposure to the Tennis Gardens

Our first time into the Tennis Gardens at Indian Wells was really fun – if you have never been to a big time tennis tournament, I think you are missing a unique experience. The grounds are absolutely packed. Everywhere you direct your attention there are tennis themed vendors, bars with lots of big screen TV’s and food vendors. They are all extremely busy, but we haven’t had an overly difficult time finding a table to sit at to enjoy how the chicken tenders and fries seem to compliment the Moet champagne! We thought about taking a snack in the Nobu restaurant that is in Stadium 2 on the second level – their dining room has window space along the West side of the court that pretty much runs the length of the court – looked both very fun and very expensive!

We have evening tickets in Stadium 1 – the big stadium where all the highly seeded players get to play their matches. We learned, however, that once you are in the grounds, you can basically sit in on any of the matches that are in progress as long as there some seats. The smaller stadiums are all general admission seating only – first come first serve – and once you are on the grounds you can enter any one of them. However, even the bigger stadiums with the bigger names are at least half open to general admission seating.

We peaked in on a match where Maria Sharipova was dominating, but the place was packed and we didn’t think we could find a place for 4 of us. We headed over to Stadium 2 where the big American John Isner was in the process of defeating the Austrian Jurgen Melzer. We were able to find nice seats on the first level courtside and in the shade to boot – I really like this open seating. Even in Stadium 2, the 2^nd largest, you are so close you can hear the players breathing and commenting to themselves on their play. It is pretty cool!

Getting tickets for a few days in advance is a crap shoot – you have no idea who might be playing. We wanted to do one of the very early rounds, and we struck gold! We are now in the process of watching the world’s number one men’s player, Serbian Novak Djokovic take on that rapscallion Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis. While Baghdatis did not provide as much of a challenge to the world’s No.1 as he is capable of, just watching a match of this caliber for the very first time, and managing to snag tickets to the top seed and returning champ on our first night out is a huge score. We couldn’t have been any happier with our first day!

Talk to you soon!

Palm Springs

We had always talked about it as something we wanted to do, but you know how it goes – you just never seem to get around to actually pulling the trigger and doing it. Well, this year is seeing us pulling a few triggers - now we are heading to the desert to take in the big spring tennis matches in Indian Wells California. We know that all the big names in tennis play here each year, and we hope to get a chance to see a few of them during our visit.

We are staying with our good friends Ron and Teresa at the Emerald Desert RV Resort in Palm Desert. It’s a very upscale resort with lots to do, and puts us in a really good location near the tennis matches, near the Woman’s cousin Craig and Mary Fran’s winter digs here, and near all the things that the Palm Springs area has to offer.

The valley that all these desert towns along the I-10 rest in is a fold between two mountain ranges that brings both mild winter weather and dramatic views of towering peaks from the valley floor. Today we headed to where Palm Springs nestles up against the mountains to a portion of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation known as Indian Canyon. Within this part of the Reservation lies the world’s two largest California Palm oases.

As we neared our destination, it looked not unlike what we experienced when we hiked to the 49 Palms oasis within Joshua Tree National Park – palm frond heads of trees sticking out from the fissure heading up the mountain – but it was massive. And, rather than just being a pocket of palm trees, it stretched a long way up the side of the mountain.

Our first hike we set out on was Palm Canyon, the largest California Palm oasis in the world. Unlike the 49 Palm oasis which just had damp soil around the base of the trees, there was a flowing stream running through Palm Canyon with a considerable amount of water volume. They even had their own waterfall near the base!

We started at the lowest point and hiked through the shade of the massive California Palm grove. The ranger had told us the loop hike was a little over 3 miles, so the length of the Palm oasis here must be nearly 1½ miles – by comparison, I would estimate that the 49 Palms oasis maybe covered something like an acre. All the while we hiked in the shade of the palms we listened to the babbling of the stream, took in the beauty, and imagined what a refuge this area provided to its earliest inhabitants long before any services were available to make this wasteland habitable.

As we were enjoying ourselves amid the shade and the sounds of water, we noticed our friend Ron on his knees poking around at the ground. He told us that the depressions we saw in the sand were traps made by Ant Lions. Ant Lions are small creatures that look a bit like tiny crabs with massive (for their size) claws. They build depressions and bury themselves at the bottom, wait for an unsuspecting ant to slip into their trap, and then hurriedly grab the ant with their claws and hold on until the ant dies from exhaustion. It is kind of interesting to watch, because when the ant falls in and the Ant Lion attacks, a plum of sand flies up letting you know the game is on!

As we reached the top of the stretch of palms, the trail headed steeply up. One side of the crevice that the oasis rests in is not very steep – that is the side of the stream we mostly hiked on as we ascended through the oasis. But the other side of the crevice was a very steep craggy wall, and we were pleased to see that the return part of the loop took us up along that ridge line.

So, our pathway up had us hiking amidst the palms. Our pathway back had us soring high over the tops of the palms with continuous overlooks from above into the wonder of the largest California Palm oasis in the world. It seemed to us like every 20 steps we took there was another to-die-for view that we had to stop and take advantage of. Without the shade from the palms, the return route had us in the direct heat of the sun, but a pretty much constant wind up the valley managed to keep us mostly comfortable.

After enjoying the treasures of Palm Canyon, including its really cute and authentic trading post, we headed to Andreas Canyon. The second largest California Palm oasis in the world is maybe only 2 or 3 miles away from the largest, nestled in another crevice in the mountainside heading in a slightly different direction.

The scene was similar when we arrived at the base – massive palm grove with running water. As expected, this oasis is not as huge as Palm Canyon – the loop hike is just over a mile, so the Andreas Canyon oasis must only be about a half mile long. But there was maybe double the volume of water rushing through the stream that constantly feeds this massive oasis. The sounds of the water echoed everywhere as we hiked.

As in Palm Canyon, on the leg up we enjoyed the shade of the palms, hugging the stream all the way. But the return on the loop was a nice new perspective. The high craggy wall along one side of the oasis was more like a canyon wall with spectacular peaks – no way to hike that. So we were hiking, again above the oasis, but looking down on the oasis with this shear rock shelf behind it. While it is smaller than the Palm Canyon oasis, this unique rock feature makes it perhaps even more beautiful.

Not terribly far from the oases is the Scena Golf Club. We ended up golfing there with Ron and Teresa and two other couples they are good friends with. The setting again was spectacular, the golf challenging, the food and drink in the clubhouse was yummy, and the camaraderie with our golfing partners was engaging. It was a very nice visit all in all.

Talk to you soon!

Miscellaneous experiences along the way

We manage to find some fun and interesting experiences wherever we park Colectiva along the way. We learned that even if you are living in a double wide trailer in a mobile home park, you can still get into the holiday spirit big time!

We also learned that the human need to get into that holiday spirit isn’t reserved for only terrestrial settings. We learned that even those living on the water find the need to decorate and get into the swing of things.

When we were in Quartzsite Arizona, we were staying in an age restricted RV park – most of the RV parks in that area are restricted to the 55+ crowd. It’s good to see that as we get into our more senior years, we will either still have a good sense of imagination, a sense of adventure, a sense of humor, or still have the need to show off – not sure which is going on here!

We are always on the search for sunsets. Coupling a sunset with a campfire is just a bonus if it can be pulled off. The Woman says she saw a green flash during one of our sunsets, but I wasn’t looking at the moment so I can’t confirm. This sunset was one of our better ones.

We are also always on the look for rock windows and arches when we are on our hikes. We managed to find this nice arch while we were hiking in Joshua Tree National Park. It is not mentioned in any of the Park literature or trail maps, and we only found out about it because we bought a non-NPS trail map in town. The map was a few bucks, but when we found the arch, it was worth it!

We like our critters when we are on our hikes. Many of our hikes we don’t see any wildlife at all except for birds. The birds are nice, but we like to occasionally see some of the four legged variety of critters.

On this particular hike, we not only got to see one of the quite small furry kinds of four legged critter, but we also got to see a few of the larger furry critters as well. This one actually hung out with us for a while – didn’t seem to have any fear of us at all.

Family and brewery tours – what could be better? How about family and brewery tours while bringing along a pint of beer – yup, that would be better!
 

At the end of any good day comes a good campfire. I always thought that only two legged mammals were partial to campfires – I guess I was wrong. Four legged furry types also like their campfires at the end of the day.

Talk to you soon!