Having visited Arizona several times over a 15-year period I thought I was familiar with the southwest’s deserts.
Wrong! Tom and Irene Schaible of Oxford, who have wintered in Borrego Springs, CA the past few years talked me into comparing arid to humid — California’s desert to Florida’s swamps.
Borrego Springs is about 80 miles south of Palm Springs (which is also in the desert), 80 miles north of Mexico, over the Aguanga Mountains from San Diego and about 1,000 miles from Denver, or at least you get the idea while driving that Denver’s the next closest town going east.
Borrego Springs is an unincorporated community under county jurisdiction. It has 2,900 people by census, and over 9,000 in winter. The rainfall average is six inches a year. It’s had less than two this rainy season.
The Anzi-Borrego Desert State Park of 600,000 acres, that boasts of 500 miles of primitive roads, many trails and sinuous canyons, to quote their literature, surrounds the community. That makes it an obvious attraction for bikers, hikers, nature lovers and other non-golfers.
It’s also one of those places to which you can’t get there from here. I was flown into Palm Springs from Phoenix on some skinny, motorized aluminum cigar size machine and dropped off a cab ride from the terminal.
The car rental gal said, ‘Take two lefts and a right on 10.? I didn’t need to hear any more. Tom had told me exactly how to get there and I knew the route by heart. An hour later I stopped at the last rest area for 62 miles and called Irene. She said, ‘For gosh sake, Jim, ask someone where you are!?
I went back 15 miles and got on S22 and encountered two other cars on this very dark, 28 miles of unlit and totally uninhabited desolation.
By daylight one can see an occasional camper across the flatness. I write some of this in jest. I actually like the desert. There’s a beauty and intrigue to it. Desert flowers seem to have extra radiance, though it may only seem that way because of their rareness.
Though it has to be a major concern, there seem to be no water restrictions in Borrego Springs. Golf courses, especially the one Tom works at, are pretty as any I’ve played. Geranium entrances. Picturesque palms. Water fountains and cascades.
Seventy percent of available water in California goes for farming, but only five percent for human consumption.
Tom said I had to see the ‘valley before you go home.? Fifteen minutes later we had doubled-back up 2,000 feet to a viewpoint. It was awesome.
The few places where there is moisture there are oases of palms surrounding a homesite; a drop here and a drop there.
As we were finishing a round of golf on my last of three days there, clouds formed and the wind increased considerably. While each other evening we partied outside with neighbors, that night the trees were twisted and a fine rain pelted us.
Tom said I’d seen the best and worst of desert living, two days of sunny, still, 80 degree weather and one of inclement. For the Schaibles the ratio was more like 30 to one.
There’s more to the area than I’ve covered, like a very informative, underground visitor’s center, date farms, sunsets, etc., but every so often Borrego Springs? residents have to get to Palm Springs, Indio or Ramano to shop from something besides curios, t-shirts, pottery and beads.
Every once in awhile they need an anchor store, a car dealership, a Costco or just some exposure to non-desert life.