Saturday, March 7, 2020 - Day 1 with Grandson Logan

Saturday, March 7, 2020 - Day 1 with Grandson Logan

Since Logan was sleeping on our couch's pull-out bed I stayed in bed until around 6am, before I went downstairs to turn on the coffee pot.  Dean took the Dish remote upstairs and watched TV.  When the coffee was done I enjoyed mine downstairs and I took Dean a cup upstairs.  At 7, I woke Logan up to see if he wanted some coffee and breakfast.  Of course......they were both hungry!

Breakfast burritos were on the menu, and we all enjoyed them.  During breakfast we decided to hike the Slot Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.  The brochure I obtained from the office provided directions from Ocotillo Wells SVRA (State Vehicular Recreation Area) to the Slot Canyon.  We all really enjoyed our time spent walking the trail.  It was a challenge at times but nothing we could not handle.  Logan did a good job of scrambling around with his cast.  

(I forgot to have Logan download the pictures he took.  I didn't take my phone, so these pictures are ones that Dean took.)

It twisted and turned, became very narrow on the path, it went up and down and finally we came out to flat ground.  We walked around for a short while before reversing the walk back through the canyon again.  It was a beautiful morning, that started a little cool.  We were all warmed up by the time we returned to Logan's jeep.  He offered to chauffeur us around today, and we accepted, only if we could pay for the gas we used.  It would have cost much more to take our truck and parking it in busy places would have been a challenge.

From there we drove over to the Salton Sea.  We headed north on 86 Highway, then  195 Highway.  North of the Salton Sea State Recreation Area we took 66th Avenue  to Highway 111, which runs along the east side of the Salton Sea.  We stopped at the entrance to the park and paid the nominal fee ) to enter.  There was a Visitor's Center, where I found a few postcards, and we enjoyed looking at some of their displays, before walking down to the water's edge.  

Salton Sea from Highway 86 

Interesting story about Salton Sea

If you are interested in knowing more about the Salton Sea here is a link.

I loved this tree and how it has grown over the years.

As we walked near the shore of Salton Sea

Sign as we were leaving the park.

I stayed up high, but the guys walked down near the water.

By now we were hungry.  The nearby town of Mecca beckoned us with a few eating establishments there.  We chose Milano Pizza tucked into a building off a main road.  While it wasn't bad, the pepperoni was pretty scare for a pepperoni pizza, but it filled us up.  However, they only had bottled drinks, and were out of water.  We chose an orange drink that was okay but not something I would order again.  

There is also a service station nearby with a couple of eating establishments.  We stopped there to use their facilities before our next road trip.  While there I took these pictures, located just inside the walkway to the restrooms.  

Enlarge the picture by clicking on it to read the story noted above.

While visiting with Patsy & Bill, Kim & Ken and Doug they told us to be sure and visit Julian Pie Company in Julian, CA.  We decided to make the drive, and what a drive it turned out to be.  We left the "dessert" sand and traveled into "mountains" with beautiful vistas at every turn.  We were not prepared for the beautiful sights as we worked our way up, up and up.

Views on our way to Julian

Since we were in the Jeep and warm, we were not prepared for the temperatures we found as we pulled into the little town of Julian where we quickly noticed everyone was wearing coats!  Did we have coats - well, Logan did and he was kind enough to let me use his.  It was getting close to the Julian Pie Company's closing time of 5, but we quickly walked the block and a half to get in line.  Fortunately, we were able to move inside right away to join many others waiting to order.  We each tried a different pie - Dean chose Caramel Dutch Apple; Logan selected Apple Rhubarb Crumb and I went with Pecan Pie.  I believe Dean won the award for choosing the best pie of the day, although we agreed they were all very good.  It was the Caramel on his that put it over the top!

As we left Julian the sky was beautiful

We headed straight to the car so we could eat our desserts in warmer conditions.  The only seating that was available at the "store" was outside and it was way too cold to do that.  If we had more time we would have loved to visit the shops that were busy, busy with many visitors to this small town.  Since then I've done a little more study on Julian.  We might have been able to make a day of it here, but we would have missed out on the things we did.  

Views on the way back to our campsite.

One last stop was in Borrego Springs to show Logan a couple of the golf courses there.  He sure would have loved to play one of them if his wrist was not broken and Papa Dean would have enjoyed it too!

Two full days to explore this area is just not enough time, but we are doing our best to learn as much as we can.  There was quite a bit of time in the car driving from spot to spot which resulted in much conversation with each other....a great thing!

Not as pretty of a sunset as our first night, but still beautiful with the clouds!

We returned to the RV around 6.  The guys watched a movie and I started reading the book I purchased at the Fredericksburg Trade Days, "Escape, I Must" by Harvey E. Gann.  Once the movie was over we visited with Logan until bedtime.  We've had such a great day with him.  It was fun just visiting about a host of topics.  With no internet, what else could we do?  I do believe the internet is a wonderful, amazing thing - but it certainly takes away from how we interact with each other on a regular basis.  Not having it available to us, really allowed us to have some great conversations with each other.  

What a wonderful day we have had together.  With daylight savings time tomorrow, we will lose an hour, and we still have a lot to do.