Touring in California

While we are this close to California, I thought we would drive the car over into the state and look around the Southwest end.  We had never been this far South before without being on the coast.

That went well, as we drove over the Imperial Dunes, and on to El Centro.  The nutty folks were all over the dunes this afternoon, with their buggies.  Going up, straight up embankments.  Jumping at the top!  Not an activity for the over 60 set!

Since we are from the Midwest, and I worked for a farm Coop, we did business with the folks in Imperial Valley, so actually driving North to the Salton Sea was a treat.  It is about what I thought it should be.  Neat to see all that green out in the otherwise dry desert.

Once we were up by the West side of the lake, I thought we would head over to Borrego Springs.  Again the four wheeler is king on the road into the Anza Borrego Desert State Park.  The machines were everywhere, and the BLM campers were about every mile or so.

They huddle up into camp circles with their machines in the center.  I perceive they will party long into the night.

We made it to Christmas Circle in the town of Borrego Springs, where folks were all around the little park in the middle of the roundabout.  It is all grass, nicely manicured.  I took pictures, but the new chip in the camera will not read in my computer slot tonight for some reason.  Bummer.

We hung out in town for a while and went out to the State Park Camp Ground, but found that it would cost $34 a night to camp there.  WOW, for a state park?  California is really high priced on everything.

As it was getting dark, we headed on back to Yuma.   We were about 120 miles away.  But at 70 mph on the freeway it went by fairly quickly.

We went thru three check points by the boarder patrol today, checking for who was in the car.  Mostly they just wave us thru as we are not the profile they are looking for.  But by the Salton Sea, it took almost a half an hour to wait in line to get to the fellow doing the checking.

Many Hispanic folks were pulled from the line and were busy providing paperwork and access to their vehicles.  I'm sure there is a method for these searches, but as a simple civilian, I do not understand what it is.  The Salton Sea is 40 miles or more from Mexico.

This is the first time we have been in California as a reactivated RVer, so we are going to add it to our states visited map.  Even though we didn't actually stay overnight.  We spent all day and drove over 250 miles so that counts as a visit in my mind.

Many years ago we spent a week or more in our old fold down Starcraft trailer, in California.  We camped in LA as well as downtown San Francisco. Not sure you could do that today, LOL.

Retired Rod