A Year About

I will now annoy you with a brief description of the weather we have had here in Anza-Borrego. Days top out around 80 degrees. Sun. Some clouds for interest. A brief sprinkle of rain one night. Nights drop to high 40s. Clear. Lots of stars. It has been so lovely, I’m a little reluctant to leave it.

Before we left this morning, we chatted with Jay and Cherie — also Airstream owners and friends of Rich and Eleanor. They are staying here too and are avid cyclists. They brought two tandems with them, and have at least four Rivendells at home! I only have one.


Our parking spot

We drove to Ghost Mountain and hiked up the mile trail to the top. There we found the ruins of Marshall and Tanya South’s home. They lived here back around the 30s. Everything they needed had to be hauled up the mile trail. There is no water, so they developed a series of cisterns to collect the sparse rain water. Man, they were crazy. But not entirely: it really is a beautiful place with grand views of the valley and distant mountains.


What’s left of the Souths’ house

As I wandered around the top, I saw a patch of bright blue behind a bush and stumbled upon Tom. He comes up here regularly and camps. He has been hiking and backpacking since the early fifties when he caught the bug after meeting one of the Appalachian Trail’s first through hikers. Tom was great to talk to and now I’m excited to do more backpacking and tent camping. He has hiked on the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and many many places in between. We wished him well on his upcoming excursion to Sweden to hike a particularly beautiful route where you can drink any water you find and can pitch your tent wherever you are. Sounds nice.

Tom taught English at Utah State (I believe) and knows one of my favorite writers, Wendell Berry. This was one of those cases where, without anything but sheer coincidence, we met someone who is kind and inspiring.

When we got back to the campground we discovered that Rich C and Sadira had arrived. Rich’s blog was the first Airstream blog I had discovered when we started thinking about this trip. The invaluable technical advice he provides through his websites was — and is — incredibly helpful. It’s one of the reasons we bought a Mac for the trip. This was the first time we’d met. He and Sadira couldn’t have been more gracious. We hope they enjoy the next few days. Of course, how could they not? Just read the weather summary at the top!

We also had the pleasure of meeting Larry and Bill, who rolled in today too. Yes, they are Airstreamers. We spent the evening at their campsite enjoying a delicious pork soup Larry made and learning a little about each other. What a treat! This was a fine way to spend our last evening in Anza-Borrego.

Tomorrow we drive over the mountains to a county park just outside of San Diego. There we will meet up with my friend Charles. I met Charles when I was a freshman at Virginia Tech — which is also where I met Mark. (Remember? We visited Mark in Houston.) I believe Charles has a PhD in mechanical engineering, which is hard to believe. I remember Charles, who was a junior at the time, nearly failing Thermodynamics or Fluid Mechanics or maybe both. Luckily, he married well and we are looking forward to visiting him, his wife Tracy, and their kids.


Look! The desert is about to bloom!

Today was somewhat of a chore day here in sunny Southern California. But since it was a lovely 80 degrees with not a cloud in the sky, no one here is complaining.

Bobby threw himself at the mercy of the laundromat while Elise and I worked our way through fractions and adding nines. I have a really hard time explaining concepts sometimes. I know what I am thinking in my head and it makes complete sense to me. It’s the getting the point across to my reluctant student that’s the hard part! Luckily, Elise was able to decipher my mutterings and we made it through.

The afternoon was spent in Julian, a mountain town about 45 minutes away from here. We are apparently supposed to take the trailer up this pass, called Banner Grade, when we leave here on Friday, but after driving it without Shackleton, we are reconsidering our possibilities. It wouldn’t be fair to call these curves S-curves. They are more like the sine curve, with constant peaks and troughs. There are signs as you slog up the mountain that ask the slow traffic to use the pull outs. These consist of very short dirt shoulders that take you to the edge of the mountain cliff with no guardrail. No thank you. One of the other driving options is to go up Montezuma Grade. Sounds promising, doesn’t it?



Julian is a lovely small town, with a quaint main street. This town was a mining community hub in the late 1800s for a short time. Once the townsfolk realized that the mines weren’t producing much of anything, the town became known for the apples it grew. Now all of the eating establishments in Julian sell apple pie, candy apples, apple turnovers, apple dumplings, caramel apples – you get the idea.


And this is the hill on top of the mountain!

Before we went for our apple pie, we visited a used bookstore (no Trixie Beldens, I’m afraid) and did a little shopping at a great candy store. This place had it all: bulk candy, Jelly Bellies, rows and rows of licorice candies, toffee flavored candies, bags and bags of chocolates in all flavors and varieties, old fashioned candy (horehound candies, candy cigarettes, Teaberry gum), and all the newfangled stuff kids like these days (gummy pizzas, liquid lollipops, and Harry Potter Acid Pops). I lost a bet to Elise and Bobby and owed them each a candy something. What better place to pay up than here?

Julian Pie Company was where we chose to try the pie. I had the classic apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top and Bobby was about to have the same pie but with melted cheddar cheese instead (remember the whole “no ice cream for Lent” thing?) when I pointed out the strawberry rhubarb pie. Both were delicious. Elise didn’t want pie, she just wanted to eat her candy. Being the good parents that we are, we made her eat a doughnut first. Anything to slow down the sugar!

Since we have no jobs and no income, we sometimes pay attention to how much money we spend. Danine pays the bills. I am the budgeteer. Unfortunately, I only spent one semester in engineering, zero semesters in accounting, and eventually graduated with an ever-versatile English degree. This means the budget I employ is sufficient, but not thorough or utterly precise.

Anyway, I estimated we would get about 10 mpg and we get between 10 and 11. That’s good. I estimated we’d drive about 18,000 miles during the trip, but we’ve already gone about 13,000. Looks like I’ll be maybe 8,000 miles too low. Oops. I also estimated we’d average $3.00 per gallon. That is almost impossible to predict. However, our monthly estimated gas budget is $540 and our actual is $550. Not bad!

Until now. Before leaving Tucson, I filled up for $2.81. Yesterday, I filled up in Borrego Springs at the cheapest of the three stations for $3.59. Today all three places are $3.79. This is not good for the budget. We may start coasting a lot more.

Actually we can spend as much as we want. It simply means that the theoretical house we buy when we return will get smaller and smaller. So as fuel costs rise and unforeseen cavities require filling, we hope housing prices continue to fall. So far, so good.


Bobby and Elise in the Slot


Crannies in the Wind Caves

Today we burned through some of that expensive gas going to the Slot and then the Wind Caves. The Slot is famous because it is incredibly narrow, suck-in-your-gut narrow, “Hey, my foot’s stuck!” narrow, “Pass me a chisel or pass me some Crisco,” narrow. Elise walked through it without a problem. The Wind Caves look like something from Tatooine in Star Wars, but, in fact, they are nature’s english muffins, all nooks and crannies.



One highlight at the Slot was seeing a chuckwalla right by the trail. Our chief spotter, Elise, found it. It didn’t seem phased by us and waited for Danine to shoot its picture before leisurely crawling away.


RVs in the desert

One phenomenon we have noticed is the frequency with which folks boondock in their RVs all around the desert. Boondocking is just staying in a spot without hook-ups or developed campsites: basically pulling off the road and parking. As you drive you can look out across the flats and see a constant sprinkle of RVs spaced throughout the brush. We could do this too I suppose, but haven’t felt very inspired to do so yet. Of course, these boondockers may be roughing it, but they aren’t crazy. They still have their satellite dishes and TVs.


See our little truck?

Southern California in February is the place to be. I was in shorts and a T-shirt by 9:00 this morning and it is supposed to get to 80 tomorrow! Maybe we’ll just stay here the rest of the trip…

Palm Canyon was the hike on today’s agenda. The trailhead is about a mile from our campsite, so we hopped on our bikes and rode up. On our way, we were passed by a school bus full of kids. Luckily, they continued to another part of the park. Nothing like sharing your hike with a group of over-excited kids being chased by harassed chaperones.

Once again, the desert surprised us with beautiful flowers and some unexpected wildlife.






Chuparosa, a hummingbird favorite.


Brittlebrush.


We think this is either a zebratail or desert night lizard.

With a little coaching from those on their way down, we were able to see the longhorn sheep we had heard so much about. This picture isn’t great, but if you look carefully, you can see about 5 rams in the middle. Did you know their horns are hollow?



Palm Canyon is what you imagine when you think of the stories you read as a child about someone wandering thirsty in the desert and then the desperate character comes upon a stunning oasis and their lives are spared. Usually I remember, too, a genie appearing and granting wishes. Surprisingly, this didn’t happen to us but we endeavored to enjoy the day anyway. At the top of the mile and a half trail there is a large cluster of California fan palm trees, the only palm trees native to California.


See the cluster of palm trees on the left?

There used to be more of these trees here but there was a large flood a few years ago and several were washed away. You can see evidence of this all down the trail. In some places it is a few palm fronds caught on some rocks. In other places, it is a 20-foot trunk wedged between giant boulders.


Elise tests her balance on one of the palm trees washed downstream.

Elise found several large boulders to scramble up and then slide down so the day, for her, was a success. The bike ride back to the trailer was almost completely downhill, so there was virtually no peddling for anyone.

The afternoon was fairly pedestrian. We all showered, Bobby went to the grocery store, and Elise and I did school. After school, Bobby and Elise got us ready for a campfire. The two of them figured out that we have not had a fire since Louisiana! That’s almost criminal, really.

This picture is from yesterday, but we forgot to include it. This hummingbird is nesting in an elephant tree near the visitor’s center.



Don’t forget to check our Flickr site for other pictures. We take zillions but only put a select few (or ten) on our daily blog.

On a completely separate note, I have decided to try jogging. I am not a person who exercises. I have signed up at gyms before and within a month or two, stopped going. My lack of self-discipline gets in my way. I never diet. I eat what I want, when I want and so far, it hasn’t caught up to me. But 40 is only a few years away, and everyone who has crossed over that line has told me that 40 is when it all catches up to you. So in an effort to help rectify all the things I don’t do for myself, I went jogging today. Just a little over a mile – I figure there is no sense killing myself immediately. I am surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did since I have always told anyone who asks (and even those who don’t) that I hate jogging. But there you have it. I’m a jogger. But check with me in a month or two and then we’ll see what I’m calling myself.

After going to Mass at St. Richard’s in Borrego Springs, we geared up for a day of exploring and went to the visitors’ center to get the low-down on the weather. It rained off and on Saturday night, and there was a 50% chance of rain on Sunday in addition to high winds. I asked if our planned excursions, to South Palm Wash and Font’s Point, would be okay. They said sure.



The park is very big. We drove 15-20 miles to get to our first destination, a slot canyon. We had specific instructions from a ranger about where to look for the turn-off. After passing a steeply sloping gravel clearing, we realized that was the parking lot. We turned around and pulled in. There is a jeep road that wraps around a steep ravine and heads down to the bottom of the wash. At first, it didn’t look like the truck would fit, but once we walked a few yards I decided it would be fine. Danine and Elise walked to the bottom to take pictures while I raced back up to get the truck. I put it in the low four-wheel drive mode and first gear, then let the truck do the rest. It crept easily down the ravine. No problems. The rest of the half-mile drive through the wash was flat, sandy and fine.



It’s easy to tell where to stop in the wash, because the canyon becomes too narrow to drive a truck (or VW Beetle) through. We then hopped out and hiked into the canyon. It was narrow with a sandy floor, and in many places the occasional water and the frequent wind have carved smooth curves and patterns along the walls. Much of the canyon is not rock so much as compressed sand. You can pick up pieces and crush them in your hand. At some points the canyon narrows to as little as two or three feet across.





Elise enjoyed the scrambling opportunities this hike presented and we took a few detours up rockfalls and cave-like offshoots. The sky remained incredibly blue above us and the wind moderate. During the whole two and a half hour adventure we saw not one other person. We did see an energetic lizard and some beetles!



The truck crawled neatly back out of the wash and we headed to another off-road track. This was a four-mile stretch through a wide, sandy wash. It leads to an overlook called Font’s Point. We timed it to be there near sunset. Danine got to the overlook first and told Elise and I to stop and close our eyes. Being very trusting, we did this and she lead us by our hands. Once she told us to open our eyes, we saw first that we were four feet from the edge of a cliff! And then we looked out over an vast expanse of badlands: a labyrinth of wrinkled and crenulated red and brown hills. We lingered for a long time.


On the left horizon, the bright blue is the Salton Sea.



We ended our evening eating at the cheap and delicious Jilberto’s back in town. Jilberto’s is Spanish for “piles of Mexican of food large enough to bury a basketball.” We then watched the second half of The Sound of Music and called it a day.

Today was lazier than intended. We had to wait until after noon to find out whether or not we could get into a full hookup site. This meant that we couldn’t go on a walk or a bike ride until we knew what was going on. Bobby took the time to ride his bike down to the library (one and a half miles away) while Elise and I stayed at the trailer. She worked on an art project while I read to her from the latest Trixie Belden book, The Happy Valley Mystery.


This is before we moved. Shackleton is on the left-hand side of the picture.

By the time we found out that we could stay in the full hookup part of the campground, picked our site, moved the trailer and got ourselves re-situated, it was after 2:00. Then things got really bad. Elise created a fort under our dinette and was ensconced there for a while and I laid on our bed and read Maeve Binchy’s Echoes. Elise got bored under the table and joined me for some reading, each to our own book. Bobby, not quite as lazy as the rest of us, rode his bike again, this time to the Visitor’s Center. Before leaving, though, he extracted a promise from us that we would actually leave the trailer for a walk when he came back.


The view from the top.

Our walk took off from our campground and brought us to the top of a nearby hill for a look out over the desert. Behind us were the mountains and Palm Canyon where we plan to walk later this week. We talked to some folks today in the campground who took that walk today and saw lots of bighorn sheep on the trail. We’re hoping to be so lucky.



There were more desert flowers here, but smaller than the ones we had seen in Organ Pipe. Still, it’s always nice to see color in the desert!

We hauled it from Organ Pipe Cactus NM to Anza-Borrego SP yesterday. It was a good traveling day and we didn’t want to overnight it at a Wal-Mart in Yuma. We parked in the small side of the campground without hook-ups (all hook-up sites are full), and backed in right at dark. We need to charge our batteries because the furnace blower drains it after a few nights — even when we set it at 54 degrees! If there’s no available hook-up sites, we’ll stay in the nearby RV “resort.”

The drive in was beautiful and the mountains that make the back drop of the area are incredible. We’re in California!

We’ve been very lucky here in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This is in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, which tends to get a bit more rain than the other deserts in North America. A bit more rain means there’s enough water for the big cacti to grow, so there are many saguaros and organ pipes. The saguaro cactus is more frost hardy than the organ pipe. Organ Pipe is about as far north as its namesake cactus can stand to live.


The huge cactus is a saguaro. The organ pipe cacti are the clusters to the left of it.

Why are we lucky? Because blooms of flowers in the desert don’t happen every year and hasn’t the past two years. Right now it’s happening and the desert is positively green. Even the ground is carpeted with stubby grasses and wildflowers. The ocotillo are green sticks instead of brown, and many have bright red flowers at their tips. Near the Ajo Mountains that make the eastern border of the park, there are little meadows of bright orange and yellow flowers. With daytime temperatures in the high sixties and low seventies, it’s easy to forget this is a desert.



We drove safely and uneventfully through the Tohono O’Odham reservation on our way from Tucson. Rich gave me the sage advice of filling my tank at a pump on the reservation because it would be cheaper, and it was, by 12 cents. That adds up!

Yesterday, after a spirited game of Monopoly (that I won), we drove along a gravel loop near the base of the Ajo Mountains and then walked a three mile loop that took us into a beautiful valley surrounded by the low, craggy Ajo range. In the evening we went to a ranger talk about the lunar eclipse. We watched the eclipse progress about 90% before cloud cover kept us from seeing the full red moon. That was disappointing, but it was the first time I have spent awhile looking at the stars and moon through binoculars. They really help.



This morning we did a mile walk with two rangers, learning about the geology and plant life of Organ Pipe. After a Monopoly break (Danine’s winning), it is now homeschooling time. For Elise. Mostly.

We finally had our last day in Tucson. I know – you thought it would never happen. We’ve noticed that the number of views on our blog have decreased over the week. Apparently, we are staying too long in once place for you people!

Arlo and Jay, my parents’ friends from college (and our new ones), stopped by this morning for a look at the Airstream. We partook of a lovely breakfast of coffee, tea and shortbread while we visited. They are truly wonderful people and I could have talked to them all day long. We hope to see them again soon, although we’re not really sure how that’s possible, but as Elise says, “There’s always hope!”


Elise and I get ready to defend our fort. You can see our snowman in front of us.

Taking advantage of the snowfall in the Santa Catalina mountains above us, Elise, Emma, Bobby and I drove up to Mt. Lemmon for a snowball fight. Each team built a fort and a snowman holding a sword. As the “war” progressed, I was able to break through Bobby and Emma’s fort with my snowballs but Bobby did a pretty solid job decapitating our snowman. Not to be vanquished, Elise stood on his remaining torso and batted incoming snowballs away with her stick. Emma did a great job destroying my snowballs that were aimed at Bobby. She was double-fisted with her sticks, so my snowballs didn’t have much of a chance.



We have a few last minute errands to run tomorrow morning and then we will head west and south to Organ Pipe National Monument. Part of the reason we delayed our departure to tomorrow was to get our camera cleaned. We have had a dust spot on the sensor for more than a few months now. Bobby tried to fix it with some compressed air and instructions from our friend Ralph, but only managed to put two more spots on. So Bobby dropped it off at the camera shop this morning and will return tomorrow to retrieve it. The pictures from today are compliments of Elise’s camera.

Organ Pipe should be interesting. Part of the Sonoran Desert, it is on the border with Mexico and is a high traffic area for illegal immigrant crossings. All of the park websites and rangers tell you not to aid or engage with people who are crossing illegally. Unfortunately almost all of them are completely unprepared for the reality of the crossing. They dress in multiple layers since it is cold at night but then shed them during the day, many times leaving the extra clothes behind. Then the next night comes and they have nothing to keep them warm. The other issue is water. They never bring enough. How can they? The standard given for hiking in the desert is one gallon per person per day. I would be hard pressed to carry that much for just myself, let alone whoever else might be with me. Humanitarian stations with water and medical supplies have been set up in the desert by groups who want to help the immigrants. The park service overlooks these stations since they really aren’t supposed to be there, but they understand the basic kindness these groups are trying to provide. It is becoming an issue between groups who want to help, like No More Death, and groups who want the illegal immigrants to go away. You see signs and bumper stickers all over Tucson saying, “Humanitarian aid is never a crime”. It’s a tough topic and you can look at it in many, many ways. I think there is no easy answer.

There really is no way to thank Rich, Eleanor and Emma for their kindness and hospitality this week. They have cooked meals for us, folded our laundry, taken us to many cool and interesting places here in Tucson and Rich even played his ukulele for us! He and Bobby got busy on “The Galaxy Song” from Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life” that was very entertaining. There’s a niche somewhere out there for those two, we just haven’t found it yet. So a big thanks to Rich, Eleanor and Emma for a great week. We hope to meet up with you in an actual campground next time!



We will have no hook-ups in Organ Pipe, which we’re pretty sure will mean we won’t have wifi. So you might not hear from us for a few days, but we promise not to forget you. We’ll post as soon as we can.

I don’t know a lot about rodeo. This was my first experience in person and, frankly, it looks incredibly painful. However, I was mesmerized watching the bareback and bronco riding, calf wrestling and roping, team roping, barrel racing, and bull riding. I was particularly amazed by the little humans hanging on to very angry, thousand-pound animals for dear life and the muscular horses blitzing across the mud while precisely guiding a frantic calf or boxing in a bronco.

The bronco riding is absurd and exciting, as a highly agitated horse takes his rider all over the arena, flapping like a rag doll. I preferred it to the main event, bull riding. Bull riding just doesn’t look as spectacular, but it’s obvious that it is incredibly dangerous and, on top of that, rather uncomfortable. Some of the bulls, after easily dislodging their riders, lurched around the enclosure waiting for any poor fellow to stand too long on the ground.



We spent the whole sunny afternoon enjoying the rodeo and its trappings. The announcer reminded us again and again that cowboys are as ‘merican as you can get, and we are all proud, god-fearing ‘mericans, and wouldn’t we all enjoy a nice big Dodge pickup truck? Rodeos ritualize a lot of American ideals like the Noble Cowboy and the Hardworking Rancher, even while the source of these ideals have all but disappeared.

Anyhow, if you’d like to experience a little bit of what these men and women go through, I suggest tying a barrel to your back bumper, then get on it and have your crazy uncle drive you through the woods. You could also stand at the top of your staircase, close your eyes, and fall straight backwards. What you will feel afterwards must certainly be what these folks are feeling tonight.



This evening we gave Rich and Eleanor a date night. Danine and I took the girls to a drive-in movie. It was their first, I believe, and mine. I used to try and watch them at the stoplight on Route 1 in Alexandria until they turned the drive-in into a multiplex. Movies are better with sound. We watched the Spiderwick Chronicles, which was a fun adventure along the lines of Goonies or Gremlins from the 80s. The girls liked it too.