Sunny days in Borrego

There has been golf, two or three times a week. 

Yesterday was really the first day we could all go into the desert and explore, what with the sickness and the rain and the golf.

We decided to drive on the Borrego Mountain loop which sounded like it would include some familiar areas and some brand new places to check out.     We were unhappily surprised almost immediately after leaving the paved road.   We drove down our sandy road and right into a large group of people and little tents and tables and port-a-pottys  set up in the desert before us.   I took no pictures, hoping that if I didn't look at them, they wouldn't be there.    Evidently it was an  Orienteering Festival doing their organized thing for the weekend.     We continued past (through) them and turned into Hawk Canyon where we encountered more Orienteers and then a Boy Scout Troop group camp out.    Ugh.      After turning around we continued along the agreed upon route hoping that these were the last folks we'd meet.    They were.

no one as far as the eye can see....see our little Jeep?

  We had a wonderful time driving down sticky, wet San Felipe wash (think clods of mud flying past my open window and sticking to the back of my legs when we got out at to explore), driving down the barren looking Hills of the Moon wash and then the tipsy (not as in tipsy drunk, but tipsy as in precariously tilted road) Rainbow Wash to it's ending point.

too gooey, too narrow?

John and Dave check out the wash from above

?

Hills of the Moon wash turned out to be just too wet for us to chance this day.   The recent rains had not had enough time to soak in and the going was slippery and deep.

Rainbow Wash, however, was just perfect, albeit narrow and uneven in many spots.   All the more fun!     Last year we tried this wash and couldn't get very far before we had to get out and walk.    This time we made it all the way to it's end and had lunch there.

Font's point as seen from below (point at the top right)

We were directly below Font's Point, a favorite viewpoint over these badlands.

Mona Lisa took this picture of us up on Font's Point, looking down into the badlands in 2017

turn around point at the end of Rainbow Wash

lunch spot in the badlands

After lunch we retraced our "steps" back down Rainbow Wash to the wide San Felipe Wash to find our next point, Blow Sand Canyon.    After many, many back and forth's (Dave is so very patient) we finally found the correct exit into Blow Sand canyon.    The way was deep, dry sand and filled with wildflowers!   The view from the top, standing in a drift of fragrant desert verbenas was so worth the bumbling to find it.

At the end of the canyon we followed Goat Trail along a narrow spine and eventually came back out into the mass of Orienteers.    Time to head home.

We finished our fun day with wood fired pizza at Keslings Kitchen in "downtown" Borrego Springs.   It was good, but we all decided not as good as Calico's pizza and more expensive to boot.

We drove into our RV Park to find out that they had a power outage earlier in the day (our phones were turned off so we missed their notification) and it still wasn't resolved.    Oh well.   Dave and I read awhile but then gave in and went to bed very early figuring we had had a busy day!    Power was restored sometime near midnight as near as we can figure.

Today is football day, and haircut day and pork chop/sauerkraut day and lunar eclipse day.    Hope the sky stays clear!