Adios to California

We’ve returned to Arizona after spending a week each in Desert Center, California and at the Fountain of Youth Spa near Niland, California.  Our trip to Fountain of Youth, known as FOY to it’s inhabitants, was specifically to visit with RVing chums, Roger and Cathy, who always spend their winters enjoying the many activities and amenities of the spa.  After a number of years there, they’ve developed a “neighborhood” of friends and we instantly felt at home among them, with a lot of visiting back and forth and good-natured joshing and lots of good eating.  Too much good eating, but that’s another story.

We got a bit of late start leaving Desert Center and had barely reached cruising speed when traffic came to a screeching halt on I-10 due to a very serious accident involving two semis.  If the CB chatter was accurate, the accident had occurred during the night and still hadn’t been cleared by late morning.  We crept along for an hour or more and finally broke free of the snag and continued on our way.

Our site at FOY was on a terrace so that we overlooked the park models in front of us, giving us a fine view of the Salton Sea and the mountains beyond.  Not that the Salton Sea is much to look at.  Thankfully, prevailing winds took the odor elsewhere.  Once thought of as a premium vacation spot, the Salton is now a “dead sea”, killed off by effluence from the New River and run-off of farm chemicals from the shoreline.  But it certainly does contribute to some lovely vineyards and orchards along the shore, proving that all the desert needs to bloom is water.

Although I’m sure they’ve seen it many times, Roger and Cathy graciously escorted us on a tour of the surrounding area, including a trip to Slab City.  Once a military base, it is now home to a collection of eccentrics, boondockers and assorted other free spirits who don’t seem to mind living without  life’s modern conveniences.  They’ve developed their own society there, including places for entertainment, worship, fellowship and artistic expression.  Maybe even bathrooms and laundromats, although we didn’t see any evidence of that.

At the outskirts of Slab City is Salvation Mountain, an enormous expression of faith by a desert dweller named Leonard Knight.  Leonard loves welcoming visitors to his shrine and when we found him he was having a little mid-morning break in the shade.  He ruefully admitted that he’s “slowing down some” now that he’s 79.  It didn’t look, however, that he’d be running out of paint any time soon.  Mostly the paint has been donated by do-it-yourselfers with left over dribs and drabs but some has come from manufacturers and distributors who’ve erred in their color mixing.  Climbing Salvation Mountain affords a dandy over-view of Slab City which is, all things considered, more attractive the further you get from it.

After descending from The Mountain, we drove off into the desert to what Roger described as “the volcanos and mud pots”.  The terrain was dead flat, once likely sea bed, and we saw little chance of encountering a volcano.  But there they were, barely five  feet tall, in the middle of a sun-baked field.  They burbled and gurgled and spit up hot mud.  Like a kid with bubblegum, one blew big shiny balls of mud which then split and spewed.  After the terrible earthquakes in Japan, it was disconcerting at best to be standing on the San Andreas Fault on ground that gurgled and bubbled.  There is a geo-thermal power plant close by to take advantage of the situation.

It was a relief to all the senses leave the baked ground and sulphur of the mud pots and go just a few miles to a farm which raises flowers for the florist industry.  There were acres and acres of them, stripes of color under the hot sun, and a sweet fragrance in the air.  Again we were amazed at the fertility of the desert once once liberal amounts of water is applied.

It was overcast on the day we chose to go to Anza-Borrego State Park but we couldn’t let a little ugly weather get in our way.  Cathy had researched the weather reports for our destination and advised us to “bundle up”.   And aren’t we glad we took her advice!   We stopped in Borrego Springs for a stroll through an art festival and then again on the outskirts to see the enormous metal sculptures pictured here.

Our next stop was Julian, an historic town high in the mountains, known for its apple crops…and the resulting pies that are sold in all the eateries around town.  It happened to be the Daffodil Festival weekend so things were hopping, bundled up tourists crowed the sidewalks and jammed the restaurants.  We checked out a number of the shops, followed by lunch at The Bakery. 

Once we left Julian the sun was beginning to make an appearance now and again so by the time we got well up into the mountains, the sky was dazzling blue with big fluffy clouds making shadows in the valleys and hillsides.   Wildflowers were in bloom, even at that altitude, and one almost expected to see Julie Andrews skipping through the meadows, apron flapping,  singing about the hills being alive with the sound of music. 

We couldn’t identify most of the wildflowers, especially the shrub shown here, which reminded us so much of Korean lilacs. 

 

 

 

 

Eventually we reached the point where we began our descent into the Imperial Valley to meet Sam and Barb at Tony Roma’s for dinner.  We were all still feeling over-fed from lunch in Julian so we confined ourselves to salads and munchies and some much-needed cold beers and sodas.  Yes, it was a long day but certainly one we’ll always remember for its good company and beautiful scenery. 

Desert Center, California

After leaving Apache Junction, we headed west on I-10 to the Colorado River town of Ehrenberg where we spent a week at a membership park.  The first evening, as we strolled around the campground we met a gregarious couple from Oregon who sport the same last name as we do.  We soon established they were not related.  They promptly issued happy hour invitations for precisely 4:00 p.m. on whichever days we chose to “drop in”.  From their  riverside site  we spent several evenings watching the river flow by, yakking up a storm and nibbling away on various goodies.  Meeting new friends is the very best part of full-time RVing.

Since we’ll soon be returning to Ehrenberg, we didn’t want to see all the sights at once and then not have anything to do for our next visit, so we made only one brief trip to the notorious town of Quartzite.  Most of the snowbird population had already flown the coop, there were only a few rigs boondocking out in the desert. so it was less than an exciting visit.   I did manage to hit several bead shops and made a few purchases.  One would hate to be stranded somewhere with no projects to work on! 

We also visited the Hi Jolly Cemetery in Quartzite, the final resting place of one Hadji Ali aka Hi Jolly who came to the Arizona desert before the Civil War as a camel driver  during an Army experiment utilizing camels as pack animals for exploration of the southwest.  The experiment was abandoned and so were the camels but Hi Jolly stayed on, living into the 20th century.

Desert Center has turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.  We came here to visit our friend Betty who winters here.  The town has about 170 permanent residents and was originally constructed in an oasis by Kaiser for their mine workers at Eagle Mountain.  When the mine closed, so did the town.  Now, during the winter months, the population swells with flocks of snowbirds, primarily from the Northwest sections of the U.S. and Canada.  There are two small lakes (they’d be called ponds in less arid neighborhoods), a golf course, a library/firehouse and a community center.  There’s one cafe that’s open and one that’s not.  A general store provides staples to hold folks over between trips to either Blythe or Indio for serious shopping.  Either direction, it’s a 50 mile jaunt and given the rapidly increasing fuel prices, not one undertaken lightly.

Oases are very peaceful places.   The Interstate is two miles away so there’s no traffic noise.  There are a lot of birds tweeting and chirping and hummingbirds abound.   Lots of flowers are in bloom at present and the air smells sweet.   A stroll down to Lake Tamarisk to watch for fish jumping has a calming effect.  The air must contain some kind of soporific because the urge to nap happens several times a day.  It almost seems un-American to have a nap both before lunch and after.

Betty had never visited Joshua Tree National Park so we spent one day there.  We had hoped to take the ranger tour of Keys Ranch but it was filled for that day and so we had to improvise our own route.  The light when we arrived at Cholla Cactus Garden was incredible and this photo doesn’t quite do it justice.  There seemed to be a lime green cast to everything, including the air around the plants with a hard blue sky above.    Some of the ocotillos appeared just about ready to bloom and I expect by now they are pretty spectacular.  The joshua trees inhabit the northern  ranges of the park at a higher elevation and were not yet ready to bloom.

It being a relatively clear day we took the drive to Keys Overlook.   As you can see, there’s still snow on San Jacinto (on the left) and Gorgonia (on the right).  The low point in the middle is the San Andreas Fault.  I-10 goes between the two mountains and usually contains a semi-solid wall of smog trying to force it’s way into the Imperial Valley from Los Angeles. 

And so now it’s on to Niland on the Salton Sea for another week of fun in the sun. 

Editor’s note:  I’ve never been a fan of the Internet Explorer browser, but it is the best one for viewing this blog.  I have preferred Mozilla browsers for years, but, frankly, Firefox does an atrocious job of displaying photos, sometimes excluding them completely.  It took about six re-publishes to get the “Lake Tamarisk” photo above to show up.  Clicking on photos also sometimes fails to display the larger image.

Apache Junction, AZ – Wrapping Up Our Stay

February 28th was our final day at Superstition Lookout in Apache Junction.  Ordinarily we can be ready in a matter of an hour or so to hit the road but not when we’ve been sitting in one place for three months.  Not only does it take longer to stow everything but we needed to check and re-check our “to do” list so that we didn’t do something stupid.

Our final month in AJ was relatively calm.  Russ and Howie continued their cycling routine, doing roughly ten miles a day six days a week and ending the season with just over 425 miles logged.  One of their discoveries was a lady hummingbird who had set up housekeeping in a tree they passed some days.   She was relatively uninterested in their presence and so Howie was able to get this photo of her “at home”.  Meanwhile, Rochelle continued with her water aerobics but I threw in the towel thanks to a bad knee and total lack of interest, especially once temperatures began to dip into the 40’s.  I didn’t become a snowbird so I could be cold and miserable and wet only adds to the discomfort.  As you can see from this photo of cacti dressed for the winter,  we’ve had a fair amount of chilly weather.  I thought they resembled a caravan of Arabs gathered at an oasis; it looks a bit like a high school production of “Kismet”, doesn’t it?

 

On one fine day,  Russ and Howie decided to hike the Peralta Trail  to Fremont Saddle for the grand view of Weaver’s Needle.  It’s a 2 1/2 mile hike up with an elevation gain of 1365 feet.  The uphill trek took four hours and a little over two hours coming down (they stopped for a rest quite often).  We ladies were beginning to get a little worried as the sun edged closer to the horizon with no signs of them but they eventually returned, considerably worse for wear.  It’s a moderately strenuous climb  for experienced hikers so you can imagine how two over-the-hill novices felt the next day!  (One guide book rates it “easy”, but suggests that grandma might want to stay home)

During the snowbird season, The Superstition Mountain Museum out on Route 88 offers free programs on Thursday afternoons on a variety of topics.  We’ve been to see singer/songwriter Ted Newman several times and always enjoy him.  Most of his songs are about the Sonoran desert and some of Arizona’s famous sons and daughters and it’s pretty nifty to sit there under a big blue sky with the saguaros standing guard and the mountains beyond.  Prior to the concert, we toured the museum where we encountered a delightful docent who told us a great deal about the construction of Roosevelt Dam in the ‘30s.  We wish she’d had more time to spend with us but she had to hurry off to participate in preparation for the concert.

Russ entered one of his woodburning projects at a show in Mesa and came away with second place in his division.   The piece is entitled “Cheyenne To Deadwood”.  Pretty cool, wouldn’t you agree? 

 

It has been my intention to visit The Bead Museum in Glendale ever since taking up the hobby but it always seems like such a long trip over there.  In checking their website, we learned that the museum is about to close its doors in early March due to lack of funding so we made the effort to pay a visit before it folds.  I guess I was expecting something else and found it less than interesting although I did avail myself of their 40% off sale in their gift shop.

Harold and Ruthann decided to throw a surprise  birthday party for George Rorke and it turned out to be a humdinger.  There were several couples we’d met on previous visits to the Valley plus we met some new “fun folks” so we had a jolly time.  We arrived late due to a prior commitment so we didn’t get to see George’s expression of surprise first hand but we were told he was truly surprised.  It wasn’t long before a fairly rowdy game of Wii bowling had us laughing and carrying on.  We hope that the neighbors don’t hold it against Harold and Ruthann; it’s not their fault (entirely) that they have some particularly noisy friends.

It seems we have an ever-increasing circle of friends who either winter here in the East Valley or live here year round so there was a great deal of socializing going on.  It was wonderful to see everyone in decent (the best we can hope for at this age) health and still active and involved in various endeavors.  David and Shirley invited us to the dance lessons they were giving at View Point.  It’s hard to believe it’s been over 20 years since we took our first dance lesson from them.  We also enjoyed a rock ‘em sock ‘em game of Pictionary and learned a few other card games from them.  One game, Golf, prodded us to go on a search for a four-deck automatic card shuffler at the Mesa Flea Market.  And of course we bought the first one, thus paying nearly twice what they were selling for at the other end of the market.  Rats.

We also got to see Gayle one more time before we hit the road.  Her brother and sister-in-law are in town for a few weeks so we all had a pleasant reunion over what Gayle described as a “down home dinner”.  It’s a good thing we don’t have regular access to the yummy gravy she makes!

Our final weekend in Apache Junction was celebrated with the Lost Dutchman Parade and Rodeo, an annual event here in the East Valley.  It was threatening rain and we had to start packing up so we skipped the rodeo and just attended the parade.  The Budweiser Horses were missing this year but there was a Clydesdale Drill Team participating so there was no shortage of big shaggy equines.  We couldn’t help noticing some anomalies such as the regal-looking Knight of Columbus in his elegant black suit, white gloves, purple satin cape…and black cowboy boots with silver toe guards.  No spurs, however.  And the Shriner with the tall glittery fez with a Bluetooth receiver in his ear.  Was he expecting some calls while he’s marching down the street?  Oh, yes, and the WW-II era jeep with a pink blanket on the front seat.  Is pink the new camo?

And so Tuesday morning we uprooted ourselves and headed off into the sunset for a week on the Colorado River at Ehrenberg, followed by a week each in Desert Center and Niland, CA before returning to Ehrenberg.  Stay tuned for additional reports from along the way.