Life in the “Windy City”…

No, we have not moved to Detroit… we are still in Borrego Springs… however the wind was blowing a bit today… nothing crazy, but as I write the blog tonight at about 6:00 p.m. there is a very stiff breeze blowing! 

Today we just enjoyed life here, and did a bunch of different things that we wanted to do. 

I was up early this morning, as you tend to go to bed real early here.  I was working on the plane at 6:00 this morning, getting it back into shape!

I have been working on the wings, and they are starting to come… 1 big glue left to do!

You can see where I glued the main body back together… gorilla glue works great!  It is coming and will be back together soon…

Stopped here at this Nature Centre for some info about hiking and stuff… right in Borrego Springs…

 

Went off to the Anza Borrego State Park Visitor’s Centre next to get a map of the huge park.

They have a real nice cactus garden at the visitor’s centre…

We took the S22 road out of Borrego Springs and climbed a mountain on the road to San Diego.  Here is a great view of the Town in the centre of the picture, and if you are wondering what the white area is on the right, it is a dry lake bed, just not sure which lake… lots of salt in the ground, that is why it is white.  Behind the dry lake bed you can see the Salton Sea. 

When we came off the mountain, and back to reality, we did some grocery shopping and headed home.  These guys came by on these motorcycles and wow… 2 had old Indian Bikes with the stick shifter.   Had to be from the 1940’s… great bikes.

Got all the grub put away, had a quick lunch and then headed out on a Jeep tour.   I wanted to head out to Rock House Canyon.  It started down near the Clark Dry lake bed… had to take a picture of the Jeep on the dry lake…yes, we actually are on the road across the lake…

Found lots of desert flowers in bloom today, just don’t ask me what kind they are… couldn’t tell you…

This was an easy trail to drive, with a few rougher spots along the way, great views of the desert as we headed out about 9 miles…

This ocotillo was in full bloom in the desert.

Just a great day overall, and even better when Al and Kelly dropped by for a visit this afternoon, as our visit to them yesterday.  It was great to see them and as it was a bit windy, we sat in the RV and had a great talk! 

Tomorrow we plan to head over to San Diego for the day… We need a couple pieces for our Blue Ox Towing Equipment that were broken in the Bike incident, so we decided to go over and make a day of it… San Diego is great city… we will bring lunch and eat it on the beach of the Pacific Ocean!

Till tomorrow…

Today we were two for two!

Simply a terrific day today at Borrego Springs… weather was mid 70’s with some sun and a bit of cloud. 

After the big crash of my plane last night I figured out that I can actually glue the whole thing back together and have it as good a new!  So this morning I wanted to go back to the Clark Dry Lake Bed and pick up any pieces of the plane we missed yesterday.  It was over 2.5 klms. down to the crash site and we decided to walk it!  Left at 8:00 a.m. and it was nice!  Took us 20 minutes once we got on the dry lake bed to actually find the site, and we had all but given up when Eagle Eyed Judy says, “I think I found a piece…”  She did, and we found several more and life is good again!  Back up to the RV for a coffee.

“The Eagle” lives up to her nick name and finds the crash site and some pieces of my plane!

Next on the agenda, was to head back to the crash site of the bicycle from yesterday.  I figured out that I lost a critical piece of our tow equipment, our “breakaway” switch which is required to operate the electronic break on the Jeep while being towed.  Without it, we cannot set up the break!  Once again the Eagle came through and we found the crash site and the breakaway switch!  2 for 2 today!

Here is the site, marked by my broken seat and water bottle… switch was close by. 

After lunch I wanted to head into Town to get a bottle of crazy glue to help me put my plane back together… Judy wanted to stop at the Chamber of Commerce for tourist info so off we went on the Bergman…

Yes, hippies still live in Borrego Springs!

Met a nice Lady at the Chamber Office…

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Then we met Juan Bautista de Anza riding his horse out front of the Chamber… you can read his storey below…

 

On our way back to the RV from Town, we saw a very familiar motorhome… Al and Kelly from TRAVEL WITH THE BAYFIELD BUNCH))  are staying just a stone’s throw up the road from us…  I have been reading Al’s blog for about 3 years now on a daily basis… They are the reason Judy and I have decided to come out west the past couple of years…  I blame it all on them!  

We also got to meet their 3 dogs they travel with and had a good old chin wag with the Bayfield Bunch.  They gave us all kinds of info on the area we are staying at now… they have been here a number of times and they love it!

It was great to meet them, and they hope to be able to come over tomorrow and visit us on our site…

Had a great skype phone call with Shawn, Jenn, Emmie and of course Paige this afternoon!  Good to see them as the kids opened up some gifts Judy sent over for St. Patrick’s Day coming up! 

Yes, I decided to run our Cummings Genset tonight and had the power to watch the Leafs get back even with Pittsburgh and beat them in OT!  The dream lives!

Till tomorrow…

We knew there would be days like today…

March came in like a lion for us…  Yikes…

Day started off good, as we got all our stuff arranged in time for a 10:00 departure from Desert Hot Springs, heading for Borrego Springs, which was about a 90 mile drive.

Everything was fine till we got to the 70 mile mark or so and then the wheels fell off… kind of…

We mount our two bicycles on the back of the motor home on a Blue OX bike rack, that was specially built to fit our Blue Ox Tow Package for the Jeep.  The problem that we had today, was my bicycle decided it did not like living up on the bike rack and decided to come lose from the rack and actually fall off the back of the motorhome…

Now, if you remember, our Jeep is pulled behind the motorhome… and yes, the bicycle fell off and sort of landed on the front of the Jeep and then the Jeep did what they are meant to do… drove right over the bicycle… hmmmmmm…

This did not go well, and the Jeep sustained some front end damage… the front bumper is totalled, the nice plastic piece below it is gone… the front hood took a big dent in the front… get the picture…

Hood damage…

This crack was not there on the fender… the fender is made of plastic… probably a good thing…

All the plastic on the front end kind of came apart… and a big hole you see below on the passenger side…

This piece came off, from below the front bumper and is toast…

We did make it to the camping area at the Clarke Dry Lake Bed… and got all set up.  Thankfully the motorhome sustained no damage for the event… so this afternoon, I made the calls to our Insurance Company who has it all under control, and we will await to hear back from the claims adjuster on getting our Jeep fixed.  The damage thankfully is all plastic parts broken, and out expensive tow equipment is in good shape! 

So you think I would leave the day at that, settle down and have a drink or something and call it a day… no way…  I decided to take out the airplane and fly it down on the dry lake bed which is a perfect spot to fly… today there was very little wind and the conditions were great… here I am getting it all set up to fly…

Heading out on the dry lake bed  for take off…

Ready to go!

Take off was great and we were off flying… check out the small speck in the middle of the picture below…

I was probably up in the air after making some required turns for about 2 to 3 minutes, and then while trying to make another turn, I lost too much altitude and the plane came down rather hard onto the dry lake bed… this plane is very sensitive to fly, much harder than the simulator was… have to talk to Park Zone about that…  hard to show you the pictures below, but the plane took a hard hit and sustained damage…

The black spot in front of me is where it hit, and it did not bounce or anything… the wings are broken and some damage to the body, but you will not believe what some crazy glue and gorilla glue can do for you so it is off to the repair shop, no insurance claim here!

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Don’t worry folks, it will fly again… can’t say the same though about my bicycle… simply a mangled pile of steel on the side of the road… toast!

So now you get the drift how our day went, hope yours was better… but no one got hurt other than a bunch of plastic and Styrofoam so all is good! 

Will try again tomorrow…

Till tomorrow…