The silence of the lamb.....

7:01 am - Wednesday - February 5th - Borrego Springs, CA - 33° F, 36% humidity, wind - CALM....at last.....partly cloudy right now with a forecast high today of 66° F.  It is good to be back doin' the Borrego!  For those who may not know Borrego literally means lamb, or sometimes refers to the desert big horn sheep which can be found in the area.

I was out of bed by 6 am Tuesday morning listening to the sounds of silence.....the silence that follows a wind event....the sound of NO wind.  By 8:10 am we were rolling our wheels and heading 1 mile east to the 91 FWY, which we took north to the 60 FWY where we merged into the eastbound lanes heading for the desert!

The Newell just purred down the highway in that effortless way we have come to expect.  Just set the cruise control and hold onto the steering wheel.  It felt good to be glancing periodically at our Garmin Trucker GPS to see our progress eastward.  In less than 30 minutes we were merging into the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10.  The Garmin said our ETA at the ARCO Travel Center in Salton City (just 22 miles from Rockhouse Road) was 10:26 am, and with very light traffic we arrived just about that time.  We had not dumped our black and gray tanks since we left RORVR 10 days before so it was time, plus you always want to begin an extended boondocking stay with a full fresh water tank, and empty holding tanks.  

After emptying our holding tanks, and taking on 100 gallons of fresh wather we were once again rolling our wheels knowing that in just 30 shorts minutes we would be arriving at our home for the next month.  We have boondocked at Rockhouse Road several times over the past few years....most recently we were here for 23 days in February of 2017......almost exactly 3 years ago.  We had heard from several different sources that the land on either side of Rockhouse Road was now closed to dispersed camping, however, when we drove by Rockhouse Road just before New Years we saw about a dozen RV's camped there, so I was puzzled, and not sure if what I had heard was correct.  We had a couple of other options in mind just in case the worst was true, so as we topped the last rise between us and Rockhouse Road we were not too surprised to find no RV's parked anywhere in the Rockhouse Road vicinity.  We did, however, see a couple of RV's just off S-22, so we pulled off the road to see if camping was allowed there and found that there was this little sliver of State Park land where you can still boondock legally right adjacent to the former Rockhouse Road boondocking area.....score!

There is room for 4-5 RV's in the little sliver of State Park land, but one of the things we love about the area is that your neighbors are not that close to you, so we found a spot big enough for our 62' not too close to either other other two RV's and began to set up camp......

Our nearest neighbor...a nice, respectful distance

You can just see our other neighbor there in the distance

....within 20 minutes I had our solar array tilted toward the sun in the southern sky, and we were putting a charge into our batteries.  After turning on the inverter I deployed our Winegard satellite dish, and we were ready for business......

.....next we removed the VW from the trailer, and I removed the firewood and portable fireplace hoping for an evening fire.....

Firewood stacked and ready for our first wood fire in almost a year!

.....but, alas, it was not to be as the wind came up again just as the sun was setting over the western mountains.......

  

.....oh well, there will be 30 other chances for a wood fire!  Nevertheless, the sunset was sublime.  As darkness enveloped us you could feel the peace of the area wrap around you.  The darkness here is inky black as the nearest ambient light is close to 10 miles away (Borrego Springs), and there is little sound at night except the sounds of the Anza Borrego Desert.  By 9 pm the wind had abated, and we slept like the dead.  For the first time in months the bedroom temperature dropped down under 50° F.....the outside temp got into the low 30's, but were as snug as two bugs in a rug....we just add an extra blanket and all is well.

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