A Golden state of mind

October 26, 2021

Nevada desert camp to Borrego Springs, CA

I swear that the wind out here in the desert must blow all the time! While it was not as strong as yesterday, it was still windy before dawn this morning. Don said that last night he went to bed thinking the wind was going to blow Tango over and we'd go rolling out into the desert like a big silver burrito!

We slowly broke camp while trying to remove as many of the goat heads as we could off the bike tires and our big outdoor carpet. I knew I was going to have a major floor cleaning job when we arrived at our next campground! Don likes to walk around barefoot inside the trailer and encountering one of those stickers hurts!

Finally we pulled out onto the highway by 10 am. Fortunately the sand had soaked up all of the rain that fell yesterday and there wasn't a problem negotiating the gravel road section.

We both said that we would come back to this camping spot another time when there wasn't any WIND or GOAT HEADS!!! Maybe in the spring? Sitting outside under calm clear skies and looking at the stars would be amazing. Oh well, live and learn.

The drive took us back to Highway 95 where we continued south into Arizona and California.

It was supposed to be just a 4-5 hour drive to our destination of Borrego Springs but after our GPS took us off the main highways and onto a couple of "scenic" routes, it ended up being nearly 6 hours. That's just too long of a day for us and stressful for Don.

One of the roads that went from Salton City to Borrego Springs was incredibly rough. It reminded us the horrible Plaster City Rd. we had biked on near Brawley. When we arrived at our campground and opened up the trailer, we found all kinds of things had been flung around. At least the bikes were still upright since they are tightly bungeed to the wall.

It was nearly 5 pm when we arrived at Borrego Springs and we saw our campground. What an oasis in the desert! This is an upscale RV resort around a golf course and our site backs up the fairway. Quite a change from some of the places we've stayed. And there was absolutely NO WIND!!!! Pure heaven!

Don did a partial setup while I cleaned up the inside of Tango. He didn't feel up to grilling dinner so just cooked a simple microwave meal (It's so nice to have electric again and a microwave to use! Guess we're spoiled!)

After it got dark, we grabbed our Pendleton blankets and went outside to sit in our camp chairs for some star gazing. This campground is a dark sky park which means they limit outside lighting in the park as well as at your site. The stars were so clear that we could see the Milky Way.

We'll be here for a week and hope to do some biking as my foot heals.

We believe this is a Mojave yucca. The leaves are much longer - nearly 4 ft. - than those on the Joshua Tree and curve downward.

By comparison, the leaves on the Joshua Tree are around 1 ft. long.

I liked the fuzzy cotton balls on this plant.

At last look at our camp site in the Joshua Trees.

On our drive south today we encountered this "shoe station". Kind of like the shoe tree on the Southern Tier, but weirder!

We've arrived at an oasis in Borrego Springs, CA!! Notice the flat front tire on Garfield.

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