OUT IN THE BOONDOCKS AGAIN.

Back into the boondocks again! This looks like a rather bleak spot, doesn't it? Look at those arid mountains! It might turn out to be one of my favorite boondoocking spots, though.

We are a couple of miles from Borrego Springs, a little middle-of-nowhere southern California desert town. One of Odel's co-workers from the "old days" of gainful employment has recently moved here from the Palm Springs area (too crowded), and another from the same work group is building a straw bale house here.

We have thought about visiting for the past couple of years, but Borrego Springs isn't "on the way" to anywhere - in fact, it is quite out of the way for big RV's, surrounded on three sides by arid mountains. What finally attracted us was that our RV'ing friends, the Dopps and the Howes, are here boondocking. A free space (the RV park in town costs $40/night, outside our comfort zone) with great friends nearby proved to be the irrestible key.

When we arrived yesterday afternoon, we found Richard hard at work on his second clay oven. He had brought the oven door from the one he built at Quartzsite, and they had acquired enough fire bricks to begin an oven here. A bonus: there was already a rock structure on site that Richard modified to be used as a base for the oven.

We were immediately drawn into the oven building effort, happy to get experience since we are hoping to help build a clay oven at Rosanna's house when we visit in March. The "clay" is essentially mud - dirt that Richard gathered here in the desert and mixed with water.

Although there is dirt aplenty here, water is at a premium when boondocking, since all we have is what we bring. Finally, the perfect use for gray water (the dish water, shower water, and hand sink water that we capture in a holding tank)!

Since we had just arrived, our gray water tank was empty, but the Dopps' and Howes' tanks had just enough to make the "clay". The technique requires a tarp, a hoe, water, dirt and rubber boots; here I am stomping mud, holding on to Odel's hand for balance in the thick, sucking ooze.

As we drove through town in Scoopy yesterday, Borrego Springs seemed unimpressive... but we quickly learned otherwise from our camping companions. This morning, when Richard and Odel went off to play golf, Marlene and I headed into Borrego Springs to the weekly farmer's market. It is a small affair, maybe a dozen vendors, a mix of produce, citrus, eggs, flowers, plants, and crafts.

As you can see, we had a beautiful morning for strolling, and I stocked up on fresh vegies. I was happy that Marlene needed to make a stop at the bank, as I got a chance to see a bit more of Borrego Springs: the Mall. Now, usually a mall is not of interest to me, but since I hadn't seen anything remotely mall-like as we drove through yesterday, I was curious.


"The Mall" is a single story, southwestern style plaza occupied by small, independent businesses: a bank, a realtor, a dry cleaners, an outdoor store, and a clothing/gift/book store... mostly interesting, so we browsed there for a bit - and left our garbage, brought from home, in their dumpster (thank you).

This afternoon we will see another side of Borrego Springs, when we visit Odel's co-workers and go out to dinner. So far, I'm liking it.

A WEEK ZOOMED PAST!

Life moves so quickly, and the internet moves so slowly! Here at Jojoba Hills SKP RV Park, where our Verizon aircard works very slooooowly, I haven't been able to keep the blog up-to-date with activities.

Today, we are moving on for a few days of boondocking near Borrego Springs, California. I'm afraid we might have NO Verizon service there, so thought I'd better see what I can get up on the blog before we go!

We found many of our friends here at Jojoba Hills when we arrived, and a busy social schedule seemed to organize itself. One afternooon we visited nearby wineries with Brooks and Brenda Rimes (left) and Bill and Fran Rayner (right) - they have all since left on a Mexican cruise.

We learned Pickleball, the new favorite game of 50-, 60-, and 70-somethings, played on a court about half the size of a tennis court with paddles twice the size of ping-pong paddles. The light-weight ball doesn't bounce too high/far, but the game moves quickly enough to work up a sweat, pull under-utilitzed muscles out of place, and twist knees into unnatural positions. Next time, we'll lunge a little less enthusiastically.

We visited Temecula several times: the great Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, shopping trips to Costco, Trader Joe's, Henry's Farmer's Market (a health-food oriented grocery store that seems to be owned by Whole Foods), enjoying the wide selection of high-quality food and wine stores one expects in southern California and misses so when traveling...

We celebtated Dick Schneider's birthday with a big party at an Irish pub in Temecula, followed the next night by a dynamite dinner of grilled fresh tuna, grilled fresh asparagus, grilled fresh crimini mushrooms, and quinoa pilaf with the Schneiders and Mary and Elaine. On Super Tuesday, we got together with other liberal Democrats (and one out-numbered Republican couple) to watch the returns come in, eat (too much) delicious food and drink (too much) delicious wine. Yesterday, Odel played golf with some of the guys here while Carol Schneider and I had lunch at a wine country restaurant and did a bit more tasting.

After all that, you can understand when we decided to STAY HOME last night. We had an early dinner and I was IN bed and ASLEEP by 9 pm.

Today we are moving east for three days of boondocking with Marlene and Richard Dopp and their friends, the Howes, who we met at Quartzsite. Last we heard from the Dopps, they were on a hunt for more firebricks so they could build another clay oven at the new boondocking site. Oh, I hope it will be built in time for us to enjoy a slice of wood-fired pizza (yeah, like we need more food).

Here's some good news: Emma, Audrey, and all the rest of Odel's family in Memphis came through the tornados there with no damage. It was a scary night!

If we have internet access in our new spot, I'll post some photos; otherwise, we plan to be in Gila Bend, Arizona on Sunday night and I know I can post from there.

FOLLOW UP: THE EARTH OVEN PERFORMS

If you read my recent posting about the building of the Earth Oven at Quartzsite, you might want to take a trip over to Richard's blog, The Life We Share, and read the rest of the story. I swiped this photo from his blog... doesn't it look delicious?

Here is the link to "Baking the Bread", and his prior posting about opening the door and drying the oven.

Oh, how I wish we had been able to stay in Boomerville long enough to sample Marlene's wild yeast whole wheat bread! My mouth is watering... time to go fix dinner.