Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The name of this state park is a mouthful. But it is entitled, it has a lot to offer! This place came onto our radar when we were talking to fellow Boomers at the Winter Blast. It sounded like a neat place and not too far away. Viola…we had our next destination. That folks, is why we don’t plan ahead too far. Plans can instantly change!

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in the state of California. It also surrounds the resort town of Borrego Springs and occupies 1/5 of the county of San Diego. Finally, it has an abundance of boondocking. Yup, we are heading back to the desert to dry camp again…for FREE!

Here is our home for the week. There are only a few other RVs in this particular location. That’s the way we like it. But down the road, there are hundreds of other rigs parked in the desert.
This is the view out our door. I like thinking of this as our front yard

The RV’s solar panels are working incredibly well here. Jim did some research the sun is 13 degrees higher in the sky than it was at Quartzsite in late January. That has made a HUGE difference in the ability to bring our batteries up to a full charge during the day. We no longer have to prioritize what gets power. Yay!

Metal Sculptures

Let’s start with the town of Borrego Springs. Besides have resorts (which I am totally ignoring), it is known for the metal sculptures. A man by the name of Dennis Avery (of Avery Label fame), purchased some land in Borrego Springs, named it Galleta Meadows Estate and allows the public access to it. He then proceeded to commission metal sculptures from artist Ricardo Breceda. Wikipedia states there are over 130 large metal sculptures in the area. We didn’t see 130, but we saw plenty!

Welcome to Galleta Meadows. Mr Elephant greeted us.
Turtle, one of several.

Detail of the turtle’s head.
I believe this was an Aztec god…but don’t quote me on that.
Spanish Padre.
A Jeep!!!
The detail of the hair of the Jeep’s occupants was incredible.

I found this sea serpent to be most impressive.
The sea serpent undulated out of the sand. It spanned both sides of the paved road.
Our friends Dan and Amy caught up with us towards the end of our stay here. I drove out with them to see more of the sculptures. Here is Dan recreating a Jurassic Park scene. Will Dan survive the dinosaur attack on him and his truck? Tune in next week….

I could show you so many more sculpture pictures. But this blog post is going to be long enough as it is.

Random thought…speaking of Dan and Amy catching up with us. When someone wants to come to your sticks and bricks home, you give them your street address. When boondocking, you give them your GPS coordinates. I found that amusing!

Hiking

As expected, there is an abundance of places to hike here. Two of our favorites were a slot canyon and a cactus trail

The Slot

This is The Slot. What? We were going to hike down there?
Yes we were! It’s only 1/2 mile in! And the back out again. Gulp.
Hike it we did. It got pretty narrow in some parts. The thought of being in here during a rain storm is scary. After all, that’s how this slot was form…water erosion. Still, it was an awesome hiking experience.

Cactus Trail

The cactus trail was totally different. We were out in the sun and the hike meandered up and down a rocky hillside. If I had not had my trekking poles with me, I would still be on that hillside!
The barrel cactus were starting to bloom.
This is a Beaver Tail cactus. It different from a Prickly Pear in that is doesn’t have visible spines. But it can still be painful to touch.
This is the first time I have seen an Agave plant starting to grow a stalk that will eventually have a bloom. The plants only bloom once, between 40 and 60 years of age. Once the plant blooms, it dies. Amazing.
The Fish Hook Cactus, native only to the San Diego coastal region.
Up in Lake Havasu City, we saw lots of brown Ocotillo plants. Here they are green.
The abundant rainfall has allowed the plants to come out of hibernation and sprout green leaves.

Wildflowers

Finally, we have to talk about the wildflowers. The abundant rainfall last Fall and this Spring has made for a spectacular Spring Bloom, and we are lucky enough to be here for it. We arrived here on a Sunday and saw lots of cars parked on the edge of the roads. The people were all here to look at the wildflowers! It’s been pretty quiet during the work week…we only had two people stop by our boondocking site and ask where the wildflowers were. But now, on a Thursday evening, the weekenders are starting to show up again and clog the roads. I’m tempted to sit outside our RV and sell wildflower location maps!

Regardless of the crowds, the wildflowers are awesome!!!!

We started our wildflower explorations with one of the easily accessible wildflower patches…along with everyone else.
It was indeed pretty nice to see!
We did notice these people in orange vests out in the midst of the wildflowers. Talking to one of them, we discovered they were from the Sierra Club on a “Volunteer Vacation.” They were spending a week here amidst the wildflowers pulling out the Sahara Mustard plant!
These are Sahara Mustard plant, an invasive species. These Sierra Club Volunteers must really love nature. It was hard enough to week my own garden when I had one, let alone acres of wildflowers!

Let’s meet the wildflowers. The only reason I can name these is I took a cell phone picture of every flower identification poster I could find at the park’s visitor’s center.

Desert Evening Primrose
Desert Sunflower
Sand Verbena
Brittlebush
Lupine
Phacelia…maybe. I admire the way this bloom was defying the odds and growing between two rocks on the cactus trail.
Forget Me Nots

This morning we took a drive on another one of those dirt roads Jim is so fond of and got to see the acres of blooms up close.

This might be another Forget Me Not. How could you forget it, when it stubbornly holds its position in the middle of the Jeep track?
Verbena and Brittlebush as far as you can see.
Here’s it is almost all Brittlebush. We wondered why it was all Verbena in one direction and Brittlebush in another.

We are going to hang out here another day or two. The weather has finally improved to the point that we didn’t have to run the furnace this morning AND I was FINALLY able to put on shorts. This place is growing on me.

Happy Hour with a view. Ahhhhh.

6 thoughts on “Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

  1. Jeanne & Dennis

    Ever so informative! The photos highlight
    The unique beauty surrounding us if we
    Choose to explore the world around us!

    Learning by exposing yourselves to the people and places “out there”” is truly an exciting and engaging goal! We applaud your creativity and
    Enthusiasm!
    Keep r movin

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