Rincon Country

Tues March 10

We reluctantly left Joshua Tree on Friday since there was no place to camp in the park and headed to Tucson.  Friends from Sedalia winter there, one couple at Rincon Country Resort and the other couple just a few miles from there.  We were able to snag a spot for five days and enjoyed our stay and our visit with our friends.

We played more pickle ball, caught up on chores like grocery shopping and laundry and enjoyed hanging out with Tom and Judy.  One afternoon was spent watching them play in an exciting (sort of) Bocce Ball tournament.  We also found some nice places for dinners out.

This afternoon was spent cruising through the Saguaro National Park East.  This giant cacti only grow at this longitude and are a protected species.  The park is also populated by Staghorn and Chain-fruit Cholla plus other cacti like barrel and beaver tail as well as varieties of yucca and scrub bushes.  It was a lovely drive.

Lost Palms Oasis

Thurs. March 5 -

Just a half mile from the campground is a fan palm oasis with cottonwood trees.  Then four miles south east into what felt like the heart of the desert of Joshua Tree National Park is a crack in the crust that has allowed water to seep up to the surface.  A large grove of giant fan palm trees have been growing there for decades and created an oasis in a long canyon where the desert creatures come for shade, water and food.  Of course, we didn’t see any animals as we didn’t get there until mid-day but it was a pretty site among all the cactus, ocotillo, scrub bushes and yucca plants.  The four mile hike back to camp seemed to take a lot longer and felt more strenuous that going out.  I think the sun and our physical condition may have been a factor in that.  But we can still say we hike 8.6 miles and lived to tell about it! 

Lost Horse Mine

Wednesday March 4 -

Today we drove all the way back north to where the Joshua Trees are most abundant as well as the boulder piles and many trails.  It has been over 10 years since we have camped in Joshua Tree but we remember taking this hike although it sure seemed a lot longer and more strenuous than the last time.  Think maybe we have aged a bit and are slowing down!

Anyway, it was a good day for hiking and it was interesting to see the stamp mill at the old mine.  We stopped at Keys View to look out over the valley where Palm Springs, Indio, La Quinta is located.  All the mountain peaks had fresh snow caps.  We then walked out to Barker Dam where John was sure I was trying to punish him by making him walk the loop trail!  On the drive back to camp we stopped for a quick photo op at the Cholla Cactus Garden.

Joshua Tree National Park

Tues. March 3 -

We had decided that we would leave Indio on Sunday to go up to Joshua Tree National Park but the weather took a turn for the worse with predictions of high winds and possibly some light rain on Sunday and Monday.  Well the wind came through but not until late on Sunday and into Monday, the rain was a non-event.

Since we were in town an extra day we met with Mike and Diane for supper at their favorite restaurant - RD RNNR (if this were a license plate you would read it as Road Runner).  Very good food and service.

Tuesday dawned windy but sunny and warm so we loaded up and headed up the mountain to Joshua Tree.  We decided to enter the park from the north in the hopes of snagging a walk-in site at Belle campground but no luck so we drove all the way to the southern entrance where we had reservations in the Cottonwood Spring Campground. Its a good thing John knows how to handle this big rig as it took a fair amount of maneuvering to park in our site.

There are two nice hikes out of this campground so once we were set up we took the shorter hike up to Mastodon Peak - only four plus miles!! 

Indian Waters

Sat. Feb 29 -

This past week has been spent at an RV resort called Indian Waters in Indio, one of many cities considered a part of Palm Springs.  The park has about 200 nice sites with amenities such as pools, spas, and pickle ball courts.  We have been able to meet up with our friends Rory and Sue from Sedalia who spend winters in Palm Springs and spent some time with a Mike and Diane who live in La Quinta.  

We’ve played pickle ball almost daily, and I have taken a couple of line dancing classes.  John has struggled with the pickle ball due to a pulled leg muscle but he keeps working at it.

Yesterday morning I signed us up to go on a hike with a group from the park.  The 17 folks hiked the Cove to the Lake Trail near Lake Cahuilla, a 7.7 mile out and back hike.  The day started off cloudy which kept it nice and cool but as the morning wore on the sun came out and beat down on us.  We have hiked parts of the trail in the past where it adjoins a vibrantly green private golf course.  This time a couple of mountain sheep crossed the path on their way to nibble on that green grass.  

After lunch and naps we played bocci ball and dined with Mike and Diane. We almost didn’t make it to pickle ball this morning as we found it very hard to get out of bed!

Coronado Island

Sat. Feb 22

The day started out kind of yucky with cloud, periods of rain and wind but as the day wore on we got tired of sitting around so off we go in the car to explore the area some more.  Our first stop was a really nice meat market where we stocked up on steak, pork chops and some nice thick cuts of lamb chops. We also found our favorite cheese, Prairie Breeze!

Then we drove across the two mile bridge to Coronado Island. It was late afternoon, rather gloomy so we opted not to stop in town but drove on out to the beach where we stopped to touch the Pacific Ocean and collect a few small shells.

On down towards the point of the island is Imperial Beech where we parked and walked on the beach a short way, then out on the pier and back through town.  When we got to the car it was running!  John forgot to turn it off when we got out so it idled the whole time we were walking! A sure sign old age is creeping up on us!

That’s about it for San Diego.  Time to move on.

Balboa Park Museums

Friday Feb 21

Day 3 of the tourist tours.  We chose to visit museums today as the weather was on the cool side.  There are over 20 museums in Balboa Park beside the Zoo. Some are free but most have some sort of entrance fee.  We got a one day pass to visit 5 museums.

First stop was the Air and Space Museum which had exhibits about our space history.  One of the nine capsules shot into space is located in this museum.  Another one is closer to our home in Hutchinson KS.  I guess we’ll need to stop there one of these days.  And what would be an air museum without airplanes - from the Wright Brothers all the way up to the stealth jets and bombers of today.

Next door to the Air and Space is the Automotive Museum which was featuring cars of the 1970’s. But they also had some unique automobiles and antique motorcycles.  One of the unique cars was Louis Mattar’s Fabulous $75,000 Car.  Its an 1947 Cadillac outfitted to run endurance non-stop trips.  The first trip was from San Diego to New Jersey and back without any stops. The second non-stop run was from Anchorage to Mexico City.  It towed a trailer that held 230 gallons of gas which fed the car and could be refilled without stopping.  Also without stopping the car could air up the tires and hydraulic jacks allowed tires to be hanged while moving.  The front seat held a tape recorder and hookah pipe while in the back seat you could find a washing machine, ironing board and iron, an oven, food storage, refrigerator, and a chemical toilet.  The trailer also held water so you could shower plus it had a telephone and TV.  

Another unique exhibit was the Plank Road from Yuma to El Centro across the Imperial Dunes.  It was used from 1912 to 1926.

After lunch we walked through the Model Railroad Museum.  It is so big that when they are running all the trains they use a control system that was once used on regular rail lines.  The detail that goes into these displays is fantastic.  In our pictures there is a scene with police cars and an ambulance stopped by a car with the trunk open and a body in the trunk!  The big deal is that all scenes are scaled to the size of the trains.  They use pictures of actual places to create landscapes, mountains, rivers and trestle bridges.

We are getting tired so the next two museums don’t get a very thorough examination.  The Fleet Science Center is definitely for kids with lots of hands on activities and people to guide the kids at each station.  The Natural History Museum is multi storied and features not just dinosaurs but whales and ancient sea creatures.  A special exhibit of skulls caught my eye.  There were skulls of lizards, mice, humming birds up to the apes & human, turtles and elephant.

We also were impressed with some of the  architecture of many of the buildings.

Today we stayed in the city until after rush hour.  A friend of ours, Austin, is a chef at a seafood restaurant where we stopped to visit and he prepared a couple wonderfully tasty dishes for us. The restaurant was next to the USS Midway. 

Cabrillo National Monument & Old Town

Thurs. Feb 20

Day two of the tourist visits took us out to Loma Point through the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and part of the Naval Air Station to the Carrillo National Monument. 

Juan Carrillo was the first European to set foot on the west coast of the US.  Even though it was a bit foggy, we had nice views of the coastline, the city sky line and the entrance to the San Diego Harbor.  Beside the statue commemorating Cabrillo, there is a lighthouse complex and the remnants of battlements and gun placements posted during WWII.  We also hiked along the shoreline where we looked for sea anemones in the tidal zone, enjoyed the early blooming flowers and spotted some sleeping sea lions.

We found a good seafood place for lunch and then drove over to Old Town San Diego where we strolled along the streets, stopping in historic buildings, shopping and enjoying the nice afternoon.  Again we headed home after rush hour had started so it was stop and go traffic all the way home.

Lions & Tigers & Elephants & Birds

Wed. Feb 19

After running errands, getting hair cuts and grocery shopping on Tuesday we started our tourist visit to San Diego.

First stop is the San Diego Zoo!  A very friendly volunteer helped us chart our course through the maze of trails, animals, and food courts.  A lot of the animals were ones we had seen on the African Safari or on our visits to Australia, South American and Costa Rica.  But new ones were some of the apes and monkeys, the Red River Hog (Congo), Andean Condor, Stellar Sea Eagle (Russia), tigers, bears from Borneo and Andes, the cheetah and a rhinoceros.  We had been warned to leave the zoo before 3 pm or we would get caught in the evening rush hour.  Even though we tried to leave early, it was after 3:30 and the traffic was already stop and go (mostly stop).

Jojoba Hills Escapee’s Park

Feb. 14 - 17

About the only place there is to camp is to go over the mountains towards Temecula where the Jojoba Hills Escapee’s Resort is located.  Since we are Escapee members we are allowed to boondock on their grounds and have use of most of their facilities such as pool, exercise room, showers, laundry and pickle ball courts. This is a huge park with close to 700 sites which folks purchase then install their RV or park model on the site.  If not in use, the site can be rented.

The drive over the mountains was a little on the tense side as the road was very narrow with next to nothing for a shoulder and curvy.  As we were coming down, all of San Diego were going up!  At least that’s the way it seemed.  Camper after camper pulling trailers of ATV’s were headed to the sand dunes we had just left behind. 

The area north of Temecula, North Mountain Wine Trail in Warner Springs, is an up and coming wine region.  We visited two wineries on Saturday (Shadow Mountain and Sierra Roble) and two on Sunday (Hawk Watch and Emerald Creek), all were having a special Valentine’s event with music, barrel tastings with a specially created desert, and specials on their wine tastings. These were all rather small wineries with less than 1000 cases per year.  The weather was warm and the wines were pretty good. We came home with 6 bottles on Sat but only two on Sunday and one of those was half empty by the time we got home.

Today we will head to San Diego, staying in the KOA in Chula Vista.

Borrego Springs, con’t.

Feb 8-14

I have played a lot of pickle ball this week, and so did John until he pulled a muscle in his leg.  It didn’t stop us from riding our bikes or taking a hike up Coyote Ridge.  We drove out to Fonts Point Saturday evening to enjoy the sunset while sipping gin and tonics and snacking on cheese and crackers except I forgot the food but not the drinks.  It was not a spectacular sunset but the full moon rise to the east caught our eye!

We dined at the wood fire pizza place one evening, sipped Margaritas another time, lunched at Ram’s Hill Golf Club and then John took me out for a fine dining experience at the Coyote Steakhouse where we enjoyed a rack of lamb.  It was on Valentine’s Eve so we would miss some of the crowds. He’s such a romantic!

It’s been a pleasant stay but its time to move on.