Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009

We left Desert Hot Springs on New Years eve after picking another RV park from the Net; we only booked for 3 nights as you never know what you are getting into. We have found some real "dogs" of RV parks in our travels. So we moved to Leapin' Lizard R.V. Ranch in Ocotillo Wells California and what to our surprise it was a great little park owned by Siegfried & Deborah Traviss. They have 78 fenced acres and the park only takes up a small portion of that.

We set up camp and relaxed until 3:00 that afternoon when we got to go on a Hayride in their little portion of the desert. Later that night they invited all the people in the park to a New Years eve party. We decided to go for a little while and then get to bed early. Well, that didn't happen as we stayed up playing games and enjoying all the new people we met. At midnight the owners gave out noise makers and we paraded around the park. Then it was off to bed. This is the latest we've stayed up in a long time (showing our age?), but it was sure worth it!



On the left is Jackie playing Crazy Eights with a group including kids and adults. It was really dark with just a few Christmas lights and some lanterns on the tables.

They put on a nice spread and also had several bottles of champagne to toast with.

This is Siegfried getting ready to open a bottle of bubbly behind a table full of raffle gifts they purchased.

The party was lots of fun and if in the area this is one of the parks we will visit again, even tho it has a funny name. Did I mention the hot tub and pool are about 75% finished?

We moved again on Saturday to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Yes, we are still in California. Again we found a wonderful park. The desert is growing on both of us and we are also starting to like the brown, brown hills, brown dirt, brown trees, but the palm trees still have some green at the top. Sure wish we could be here in the spring to witness all the desert color at that time of the year. But who knows we may be in a prettier place at that time.

Dick has wanted to try and do some night photography for a long time, so the other night he went out into the desert with his trusty camera and tried to get some long exposure pictures. The only problem: he should have a remote shutter release to do this. The next picture was taken with the camera on a tripod and Dick holding the shutter open for 3 minutes trying not to move the camera. You can see the short distance the stars have traveled in those short 3 minutes and you can also see a little movement side to side; that's him moving the camera. He ordered a remote shutter release today and hopes to get it before we leave so he can get some star shots for Debbie.

This one was taken for about 2 minutes of the half moon through an Ocotillo cactus. He also took another after shining his flashlight over the bush. I guess he had a problem holding the camera still while moving the flashlight. Sorry it's not up to the quality for this Blog.
We made arrangements with Dick's brother and sister-in-law, who are down in Yuma to meet in the middle and have lunch yesterday; it was nice to see them after all these months. Joan's Mom and Aunt also shared the afternoon with us. We met for lunch, but lucky for us the restaurant wasn't busy because we stayed for some time. It's hard to "catch up" quickly, you know.

On the way home we stopped near the road to get some shots of the Borrego Badlands. Here 4 vehicles were going up the wash. Not sure if they are camped up there but what a desolate place.

Another shot of them just as the sun was setting, hope they didn't have to come out of there after dark.

This final shot of the Borrego desert badlands just at sunset.

We got back to camp just in time to get a couple of pictures of the red sky after sunset. Should have been here about 15 minutes earlier. Oh well, you shoot what your got.

To be continued...