Jeepers creepers.......

7:28 am - Saturday - February 29th - Borrego Springs, CA - 60° F, 22% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the west by northwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 80° F.  The view this morning.......↴

My daughter Kate, and her daughter Jolene this morning

Friday, or 5th Saturday as I am want to call it, began with heavy overcast, so I deployed our Honda 2000i generator to assist the solar panels in forwarding electrons to our house batteries.  The forecast winds never materialized....in fact it was one of the calmer days we have experienced here in the Anza Borrego Desert this month.

After doing a few chores around our campsite I settled into my anti gravity chair on the 'lido deck' to do some reading, and that is how our day went with the brief exception of making a quick run into the grocery store to pick up a few snacks in anticipation of the arrival of Nick, Kate, Charlise, and Jolene that evening.  We were gone for less than 30 minutes before resuming our positions on the 'lido deck'.

All day long we saw a continuous parade of Jeeps being driven, and Jeeps being hauled on trailers passing by us on S-22.....if I was forced to hazard a guess I would say a thousand Jeeps passed by our site Friday.

We were unsure about the arrival time of our kids as Friday traffic can be, and usually is terrible in SoCal.  Add on top of that the fact that there is a large Jeep rally taking place in Ocotillo Wells this weekend.  Our kids had planned to be on the road by 2:30 pm, but did not actually leave until 3:20 pm.  They hit a lot of the aforementioned Jeep rally traffic and finally arrived just before 7:30 pm.....4 hours to drive 120 miles.....crazy!

The skies actually cleared for a few hours, but by sunset they had returned with a vengeance, which precluded any sort of a meaningful sunset.....this was the best could do about 6 pm.....

.....as I said the kids arrived just before 7:30 pm, and after 20-30 minutes of setting up their trailer for the weekend, we sat by the fire talking, laughing, and enjoying the unusually warm evening until almost 11 pm.....that's the latest I've gone to bed in a long time.....lol.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Obliterated........

7:40 am - Fifth Saturday - February 28th - Borrego Springs, CA - 57° F, 27% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north by northwest.....heavy overcast today with a forecast high of 82° F.

When we visited with Rich and Marnie last week we agreed to meet for breakfast at Kendall's Cafe this week, and then take a hike up to the rock snake sculpture.  Ultimately it was decided to meet at 8:30 am for breakfast, so we were in the VW by 8:20 am.  A rare thing occurred at breakfast.....we all ordered the same thing......1 egg, bacon, and french toast.....the #2 breakfast special.....how often does that happen?  Conversation over breakfast was non-stop.

Instead of driving back to the Newell to begin the hike we left S-22 at Rockhouse Road and parked about 100 yards from the trailhead......

.....from there it is only 1/2 mile to the rock snake sculpture.  It probably took us less than 20 minutes to cover the distance, and there we were......

......to our great surprise we found two new sculptures since we were here 10 days ago.....

 Compass

 Mastadon

......regrettably, for the first time since we began coming to this site years ago someone had vandalized three of the existing sculptures.....the big wave surfer, the crow, and part of the wolf howling at the moon.....it made me sick to my stomach to see those beautiful works of art destroyed beyond recognition.....

 The big wave surfer was completely obliterated

 Just the moon part of the wolf howling was destroyed

The crow was obliterated beyond repair

......I could not bring myself to take pictures of the destruction, but here they are before they were destroyed........at least we have the pictures, and the memory.  We finished our hike back to our VW's and once again exchanged our 'until next times'.  Spending 9 months working with Rich and Marnie, and then reconnecting three times since we left has been special, and we look forward to seeing them down the road.....who knows what the future holds, correct?

After getting home I checked the level of our fresh water tank......

....we've got about 65 gallons to last us the last four days we are here, which is way more than we need.  We have, over the course of our stay, poured in about 22 gallons on new water, so without the addition we would be down to a little over 40 gallons....still more than enough to finish out our sojourn.

By the time sundown came Thursday we had very, very heavy cloud cover, so there was no sunset, but that doesn't mean we can't have a sunset fire, right?  We invited our new neighbors, Tom and Martha Ann to join us, and they brought with them some wonderful guacamole and chips.  The are from Colorado, and travel with their travel trailer during the winter......Borrego Springs is also one of their favorite places to boondock, so they must be really good people.  We talked until almost 7 pm.....where did the time go?

Through the cloud cover I was able to catch a picture of the crescent moon, and Venus side by side (the moon is on the left)......TLE made some scrambled eggs for dinner, and we spent the rest of the evening reading, and listening to the 'Sirruisly Sinatra' station on Sirrius/XM Radio....a great way to end a special day in the Anza Borrego.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

An unexpected journey.......

7 am - Thursday - February 27th - Borrego Springs, CA - 50° F, 26% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the west by northwest.....a few clouds on the eastern horizon, but otherwise clear, blue skies once again.

It used to be that I was the instigator for taking bicycle rides, and most of the time I still am, however, TLE has now entered the fray suggesting rides she would like to take on her new eBike.  Imagine that?  Wednesday she suggested we extend our ride up to the western edge of Borrego Springs to the other Galleta Meadows steel sculptures which we have not yet visited this time around.  We were off on our eBikes around 11 am heading down S-22 toward Borrego Springs, but instead of heading directly into the village, we turned left on Borrego Valley Road taking it west to Borrego Springs Road where we turned right......

.....where there are a variety of sculptures of horses......

......elephants........

.....saber toothed tigers......

.....giant eagles capturing hapless creatures......

......and dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes...........

.....from Galleta Meadows we continued into the village on Borrego Springs Road ending up at the Big Fudge Factory for another mocha frappuccino, before finishing our ride back to our boondock oasis.  In all we covered 23.5 miles....WOW, that was unexpected.....TLE is still boasting about that mileage, which she did willingly!  We each have our own Garmin cyclocomputers, and mine indicated I burnt 1,350 caloric units......

....we were gone for almost 3 hours, and it was almost 2 pm....where has the day gone?  After a short cool down on the 'lido deck' I changed clothes, got my Kindle, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the 'lido deck' enjoying the afternoon breezes and views......

 I'm a pirate once again!

 Life is tough on the 'lido deck'

......soon it was time for another sunset fire, and the obligatory sunset picture.  TLE filmed the sunset for your view pleasure....it goes fast....

....I managed to capture the crescent moon just below Venus....considering I was using a phone camera it came out rather well, if I don't say so myself.....

.....and just when we thought it was over we got an unexpected bonus around 5:50 pm......

.....when a few wispy clouds were lit up by the sun, now well behind the western mountains.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Time to air out the dirty laundry......

7:33 am - Wednesday - February 26th - Borrego Springs, CA - 51° F, 26% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the east......clear, blue, balmy skies today with a forecast high of just 70° F.

TLE was saying after our last laundromat experience that the prices there were quite high, so she did some asking around, and found out there was another laundromat in the same mall where Kendall's Cafe is.  On Sunday when we were in town we did a little reconnoitering and found TUBS COIN-OP Laundromat on the backside of the bank building in the mall, and the prices were much better, so Tuesday we gathered our dirty laundry, and headed into town around 1 pm to cleanse it, have a cup of coffee, fill up our 6 gallon water container one last time, browse the new inventory at Frugal Coyote, and then finish with a late lunch at Los Jilberto's Taco Shop in exactly that order........

....once we had the clothes in the washer I headed outside to enjoy the balmy breezes, and to see what I could see......it's really often too stuffy inside laundromats with all those dryers going.....it does not seem to bother TLE, but it does me so outside I went.  Directly across from where I was sitting is a large mural, and a little cactus garden......

.....when I looked up I saw that the windows above the door were stained glass.....something you don't expect to see at a laundromat......

....a few doors down I found some metal sculptures.......

.......the last of the laundry was dry by 2 pm, so we headed over to fill our water container, then to the Frugal Coyote....just outside the back door there is another cactus garden with barrel cactus'......

.....and on the parapet above the door were some more metal sculptures.....you must never know what you will see if you only look up once and a while.....

.......finally, the thing to which I had been looking forward most of the day.....Los Jilberto's Taco Shop for late lunch.......Yelp gives them just 3.5 stars on 153 reviews, but we would have to vigorously disagree....it is somewhere north of 4.0....hands down.  I ordered their two Chile Relleño combo plate, and TLE two chicken enchiladas a la carte.  Frankly, the Chile Relleño's were some of the best I have ever had, and TLE raved about her enchiladas.....

.....neither one of us was able to finish our plates, so we boxed up the leftovers, and took them home for a repeat performance.....I'm still thinking about those chiles.  The view from our alfresco table was stunning......

.....the air is so clear these past few days.......and are we ever enjoying it......

.....it was a little too breezy for a sunset fire, so at the appropriate time I went out side to snap an obligatory sunset picture......

.....Nick and Kate and coming to visit us this weekend with Jolene and Charlise, and may be arriving right at dusk so I sent them a 'dropped pin' using Google maps, and a picture of our trailer with the twinkly lights so they will see us from the road Friday evening......

.....we are really looking forward to spending the weekend with them in our boondock paradise.....thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Dream a little.......

7:26 am - Second Saturday - February 25th - Borrego Springs, CA - 58° F, 31% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the west.....crystal clear, BLUE skies today with a forecast high of 77° F.

The longer I am here the more I relax and just let each day go where it will.  I don't wake up with goals, or projects swimming through my mind.  Instead I open the curtains and drink in the big view to the north.  There is nothing obstructing my view in any direction except beautiful geology.  There are no trees, no RV's parked on either side of me, no telephone poles, no wires, no cell towers, no off road vehicles screaming up and down the dirt roads.....just the quiet solitude which permeates this desert setting, the desert flora and fauna, the sun slowly arcing across the deep blue southern sky as the earth's rotation drives it to its daily appointment with the Santa Rosa Mountains on the west, and another sunset.  Time seems to stand still, yet we find ourselves on the short end of our one month stay with just a week remaining before we haul anchor and reposition our Newell to the Arizona desert.  Each visit to the Anza Borrego Desert leaves me refreshed, rejuvenated, reinvigorated physically and spiritually, and already thinking about the next time we visit before we have even finished the current sojourn.  This nomadic lifestyle affords us such great opportunities to spend time in places such as the Anza Borrego Desert where we have million dollar views for the taking.....no permits required, no schedule, no fees required, no labor to exchange.  We wake up to the sun, and go to sleep surrounded in quiet solitude to dream sweet dreams.  We 'plug' into the free solar rays for electricity, and we pay a minimal amount for drinking water.  Deep down inside most of us there is this yearning for independence, for the ability to change our view on a regular basis.  Not everyone is able to achieve that dream, but somehow we are managing to do just that.  We feel rich, even though we are of modest means.  We require little, and have few possessions, but what we have makes us happy beyond measure.

Monday seemed to embody everything I wrote above.  There is nothing which separates Monday from Sunday, or any of the other 21 days we have spent here.  There was a beautiful sunrise, and a slightly above average sunset, and a lot of just being in between.  I leave you with this......

.

Dream a little dream

.....stop dreaming and get out there and live it....thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Sometimes different is good.......

7:35 am - Monday - February 24th - Borrego Springs, CA - 44° F, 82% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the northeast.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  The view this morning......↴

The winds from Saturday, which appeared to have been vanquished, returned Sunday morning, and with the same ferocity.  That initially put a damper on some things I wished to accomplish outdoors, but Mr. Jello was in our corner this time....the winds began to abate by 10 am, and our windless solitude was restored once again.

The days are beginning to blend together as is often the case when you boondock. We pretty much have the same wonderful blue skies, and balmy temperatures every single day.  With a couple of exceptions the sunrises, and sunsets all look the same.  I don't mean to complain, but sometimes it is nice to get lots of clouds, or rain, or just something different.  Even having winds the past couple of days was different, and changed things up a bit.  Not that I like wind, but you know, it's different.  The sunny days are wonderful as we get a nice charge into our house batteries every single day, even when it's a little overcast, but sometimes it is nice to have 'weather'.

Around 1 pm we drove into town to fill up our 6 gallon water container to add to our fresh water tank.  After 20 days we are down 75 gallons of fresh water, and that should be enough to see us through our departure date of March 2nd.  Our black tank has just reached half full with just 9 days to go in our Anza Borrego sojourn.

After our return from town I spent some time repairing the wood trim on one of our entry steps by re-gluing it, and then using four 'C' clamps to apply pressure and hold it in place while the glue dried.  That was the sum total of my productivity for Sunday.  I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the final round of the PGA even being held in Mexico City.  Patrick Reed came from behind to win it by one stroke.

With cloudless skies we knew our sunset would be subtle, and it was.......

.....just a flash of light as the golden orb dipped beneath the western mountains bringing to an end another Anza Borrego day....thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Basement activities.......

7:05 am - Sunday - February 23rd - Borrego Springs, CA - 50° F, 71% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the southeast.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 76° F.  The view this morning......↴

 Sun just peaking over the eastern horizon

 For what seems like many weeks now TLE and I have been talking about opening up all of our storage bins on both sides of the Newell, pulling everything out, and then vacuuming them.  We also needed to find out if there were any varmints nesting in any of them.  When you sit in one place for 9 months the odds are you will, unintentionally, take on new residents.  Additionally, we had been seeing ants here and there back prior to our leaving RORVR, and since then, and we wanted to get to the bottom of that.  Finally, Saturday morning, just prior to the advent of our local wind event, we did just that.....

 TLE cleaning out the electrical bay

We did find the beginnings of an old mouse nest in here, but no where else

.....we found just one spot in the storage bay where we keep our fresh water hoses, etc. where there were the beginnings of a mouse nest, but it looked pretty old.  We did not find any ants in any of the basement storage areas, so we are mystified at where they are coming from.  We will probably have to set off an insect bomb at some point, as they may be living inside the walls.  There aren't many, but we see several small ants per day.  While TLE vacuumed out the other storage bays I busied myself with cleaning out both sides of the water bay using clorox wipes to wipe a year's worth of dirt, and grime off the linoleum flooring upon which the fresh water, and waste water tanks sit.  As our timing would have it we finished about 30 minutes before the wind velocity rose around 11 am, and were back inside for the duration of the day.

The skies were mostly cloudy all day, which was inhibiting our ability to recharge our house batteries, so I deployed the Honda 2000i generator to not only power our vacuum, but assist our solar panels in their charging efforts.  Since the generator was on I decided to watch, for the first time in weeks, some PGA golf.  Tiger wasn't playing, but it was just nice to sit and watch some golf whilst the winds reeked havoc outside.

By sunset the winds had abated somewhat, and we were treated to a very pleasant sunset......

....which was observed from the comfort of the Newell interior.  As I write this morning the winds have returned, but are not as forceful as yesterday's.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

Postmortem......

7:10 am - Saturday - February 22nd - Borrego Springs, CA - 59° F, 64% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north by northeast.....forecast high for today is 68° F.  The view this morning......↴

Another 'ugly' day in the Anza Borrego......lol!

 We were up early Friday to see Fred and Sandra off.....

.....it's always somewhat bittersweet as you watch your friends disappear over the horizon. 

It's been a while since I paid a visit to the local COSTCO pharmacy.  My prescriptions for the past 6 months were filled by the COSTO in Poway, but now we are in the Anza Borrego Desert, a good 2.5 hour drive from Poway.  This is why I love COSTCO.....I just call the Poway COSTCO pharmacy and tell them I am going to move my prescriptions, and then the COSTCO in La Quinta to have them transferred there....takes 2 minutes.  Within a day I receive a text message from La Quinta advising all three of my prescriptions are ready for pickup.  I first set up my prescriptions with COSTO when we were in Nashville, last December, and have just moved them to the nearest COSTCO as we reposition across the U.S.  Anyway, we had decided Friday was the day to drive the 59 miles into La Quinta to retrieve my next 30 days of pills.  We were on the road by 9 am reaching the Walmart right next door to COSTCO just at 10 am.  We then filled our gas tank at the COSTCO fuel station, and then while TLE purchased a few necessities, I picked up my prescriptions.  Oh, and some good news I forgot to relate.....my cardiologist has given May 20th as the last day I take the Brillinta, so I'll now be down to just my blood pressure medication, a baby asprin, and my cholesterol medication each day.

On another front, I have not written about RORVR much after we were let go back on January 24th.  Since we left our friends and co-workers, Jo and Dave, quit (February 20th....and that is an interesting story all in itself), as well as our former managers, Rich and Marnie, the same day.....they were only staying until Jo. and Dave left.  So, right now, there is one inexperienced person in the front office, and one part time person outside, but only Monday through Friday.....no one on the weekends when we are at our busiest.  The owners apparently had no idea the course of events they were unleashing when they changed their focus from maintenance to sales.  I think the issue is owners of RV parks think workampers need them, when it is actually quite the opposite.  We don't need them....we are vagabonds by nature, and there are a thousand other jobs just waiting out there, and we can get another one very quickly.  The truth is they, the owners, need us, but all too often they don't understand that until we roll our wheels and leave.

I say all that to say this......Rich and Marie moved their home down near us over in Ocotillo Wells, just 20 miles from our location, so on our way home we arranged to stop by and see them to get the postmortem on their last days at RORVR.  We arrived at their boondock location around 12:30 pm, and spent the next two hours talking and laughing.  They are, as I have said before, the best RV park mangers for whom we have worked in our 8 years on the road........

Back together again!

......and we would work for them again anywhere.....in fact there is something already cooking for the summer of 2021.   On top of that they have become good friends.  They plan to be at their Ocotillo boondock location another two weeks, so we made plans to meet for breakfast at Kendall's in a few days, and then hike with them to the rock snake sculpture, which they have not yet seen.

Based on the weather forecast we expected clouds to begin rolling in again, and we were not disappointed.  The sunset took a while to unfold Friday evening.......

 There is comes

.....but by by 5:40 pm we were treated to another spectacular sunset.....we just had to wait a bit for it.....

......the sunset lasted until almost 6 pm, which is unusual.  Just as we were getting into bed for the night we began to hear that familiar pitter patter of the forecast rain showers on our aluminum roof....what a nice way to slip off to dreamland!

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!