Monday, August 23, 2021

Road Trip Log - Anza-Borrego Desert - 21 Aug 2021



 Day trip to Anza-Borrego. 

After 8am breakfast and a 9am Sams Club shopping trip we were able to get on the road around 11am. The book for this drive was Before She Disappeared: A Novel by Lisa Gardner . We had started the book the previous week and continued this week. By the end of the 9 hours on the road we still have about an hour and a half left.

Smoky day out in the high desert. Hit a little bit of traffic when we entered the I-15 south at Cajon Junction. Traffic on the I-10 was a little heavy but moving along. Lots of haze in the air until about Indio, at which point it changed more to dust than just haze and or smoke.

Stopped at the Salton City Travel Plaza to top off gas. Considered getting food here, but none of the choices were really all that appealing. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Subway and Jack in the Box. So we pressed on west after getting gas. The temperature was around 99°F to 100°F. Upon arriving in Borrego Springs we started looking for a place to eat since we still hadn't eaten since 8 am breakfast. We found a little place names Keslings Kitchen and decided to give it a try. The daily menu was written up on butcher paper hung on the wall. We had a wood fired Margarita Pizza and Greek Fries. We ordered 2 pints of Blackthorn Cider since they had it on tap, but it ran out just before they poured ours. So we end up getting two bottled Blonde Ales (I don't recall the name right now, but it was an Italian Ale). Over all the food pizza and ale paired very well. To finish it all of we had a huge slice of Carrot Cake.

After eating we went out Borrego Springs Rd to see some of the Ricardo Breceda's metal sculptures. Stopping briefly at the Serpent Sculpture to shoot a couple of photos. Was still a little to hot to be out waling around. We looped back around to see the Scorpion sculpture and then decided to start heading out since it was already after 4pm by this time.

We took Montezuma Valley Rd out of Borrego Springs headed towards San Felipe. once we reached the 79 we went south toward Santa Ysabel since I had never been that way before. One of the valleys over here had puffy clouds sitting on all the hill tops. At the hard right turn on the the 79 is a place called Julian Pie Company, it sounded interesting and we probably would've stopped had we not been so full from the Pizza and Carrot cake. Next time. By this time the area was very over cast and hazy. From Santa Ysabel we took the Old Julian Hwy (78) through Ramona. Just before Ramona traffic started to pick up again and get heavy. We could see San Vicente Reservoir from the road and it looked low. Not as low as a lot of the other reservoirs we have seen lately, but still low. We merged on to the I-8 and continued west to the I-5. On the I-5 north and back home.  Once we reached to coast the clouds over the ocean and the haze made for a cool sun set with the sun being a huge orange ball in the sky. It wasn't one of the "wow" sunsets, but was still cool to see. Unfortunately we were on the freeway at this point and couldn't stop to shoot photos. 

Just before getting to the 14 interchange from the 5 we were also able to see the moon rise behind us over the Burbank area.

We made it back home at 9pm.

No comments: