Our First Day in Anza Borrego Desert State Park

....And we are already loving it :))))

Anza is part of a Spanish explorer's last name. Borrego is a mountain goat in this area.

Sunset

Moonrise

Our Camp. We've only had Dora for 1 year now and we're already adding on! Every good house deserves an addition.

Dora at Sunrise

We had to drive about 1 mile from our campsite to come up to broadcast level to send this message out. The only part of this camping area with good Verizon signal is just off the highway. We are about a mile or two back. The crowd is up here, where their phones will work and there are large parking areas. We're down the road where there is no phone signal. I guess that's the way to get away from it all now.....

We started out today with a hike up the mountain you see the in the sunset photo. That was two hours. We saw birds, bees and butterflies, even in this dry place. 

Then we went into Borrego Springs to check out the town and see where we will be storing Dora while we are in Hawaii. What a nice little town! Its really more like an artist community than I could ever have imagined. For a village of just 3,000 full-time residents, they sure have done a lot. It has art galleries, a town square with weekly music jams. A film festival, free talks on topics of interest. (Geology, Anthropology, etc.) Yoga. Free stargazing interpretive events. And, a great bike shop. I met the owner. He's calling this his "slide into retirement job".  He said that "After a lifetime of coming here, I just decided to move here." 

Sadly, we have to leave Tuesday, but we will be back January 11th, 2016 !!

Date palm groves can be seen all around this area. They sell delicious fresh dates, too!

The view out the driver's side window (taken by the passenger, of course!) - of the Salton Sea, which lies below sea level.

We stayed one night in Quartzsite, Arizona on our way to California (on BLM land). In the winter time there are over 1 million RVers staying in this itinerant "town". And, yes, it is spelled with an S, a mistake made when the town was first named.