Day 2 Rockhouse Canyon Road Borrego Springs, California

Just the other day I was wishing for a list of trail descriptions.  I was looking at a brochure for the Anzo-Borrego State Park and found an article…if you have a full day for off-roading…consider taking the Sandstone Canyon Trail.  We plotted our course on the map, packed a lunch and we were on our way.  Each time we choose a trail we have a sense of anticipation.  That was especially true today.  We never know how tough the trail will be, how beautiful it might be, how challenging it might be, if we might get into trouble…but that only adds to the excitement of actually going there!  We want to be challenged and be out there having an adventure…not sitting back in the RV.

This ride was a gorgeous ride!  It is now our favorite ride!

There were places that we had to turn around…

There were places that were a bit challenging…

It was worth every minute!  Sometimes when you are out riding in these places you forget that you are not on a road.  This path was carved by nature, not engineers, not machines, nor men.  These creek beds and canyons and washes look very much the same today as they have for thousands of years.  We learned that in this area there is so little rain that if you see a scar from an old campfire, it may be from long, long ago when Native Americans lived in these canyons.  We also learned that the fire rings might also be ancient…laid ages and ages ago.

We have seen more wildlife in the past several days. There have been Gambel quail, roadrunners, ground squirrels, lizards, hummingbirds, a pack rat, and a coyote running across the road. These desert creatures are fast and hard to get pictures of. We did capture this hawk taking off and this painted lady resting on a rock. These little butterflies are everywhere!

On our way out of the canyon we stopped at the infamous Iron Door Bar.  This place is unique!  It actually reminded us of the small bar we visited on Denali Highway in Alaska.  It is decorated with lots of dollar bills and bras.  I asked for wine and she offered me red, white, and pink.  When I asked what kind of white…she said white!  I had white wine! 

The conversation in the bar was about the expected weather.  We knew that there was a chance of rain tomorrow.  We haven’t been anywhere near a TV or the news for about a week.  Apparently, there is a prediction of 1.7 inches of rain.  They expect that it will begin this evening…in fact it started to rain while I started blogging.  In southern California…it hardly ever rains.  The total annual rainfall is about 5 inches.  1.7 inches then, especially in a short period of time, can be a big problem.  Slow and gentle rain can be absorbed, but lots of hard rain runs down the rocks and into the gullies and washes and causes flash-floods.  The guys in the bar were telling stories of vehicles and people that have been washed away in the flooding.  There are trucks with plows attached to the front running around town.  We think this might be to push rocks and mud out of the roadways.  Everyone is on edge…similar to how people at home prepare for a snowstorm.

When we got back to the RV we looked at the area around the RV…there was a gully nearby and there was a part of the road that looked like it had been washed out previously.  We decided not to take a chance and we moved everything to higher ground.

We went to town for an early Valentine’s Day dinner, Mexican food at Carmelita’s!  The mango margarita was MINE!

We stopped for groceries on our way back…just in case we get stuck up here!

We learned that the desert is not a place to bring your dog.  There are lots of reasons for this.  Lots of pets have been lost or pursued by coyotes or rattlesnakes.  The cactus spines are easily wedged in the paws of a dog and this can be a medical emergency.  The most interesting reason is because dogs leave scent behind most everywhere they “go.”  This scent then becomes a warning for all the smaller mammals to avoid the area because a predator (coyote) is probably nearby.  The smaller mammals cannot differentiate between coyote and dogs.  This creates a problem for the smaller animals looking for food…every trail smells like predator!