Spending End of Year in the Desert

Wednesday we arrived at Oasis Palm RV Resort. It is close to the Salton Sea. It is also within an hours drive of Anza Borrego State Park It is a nice little RV Park with loads of fruit trees, such as orange, lemon and grapefruit and you are welcome to pick some.

We went in one day to check out a Farmer's Market in Borrego Springs and also check out the State Park. There are a lot of places to boon dock on the drive there There will be hundreds of RVs for the long weekend. Lots of places to drive ATV's and hiking is also popular. We first went to the Farmer's Market as it closes at noon and we got one of our usual early starts NOT. You wouldn't think there would be a good selection of produce being out in the desert but you would be wrong. This  is actually an agricultural area. We bought some produce as well as some hummus, dates, and turkey bratwurst.

We stopped at the Anza Borrego Visitor Center to get a map of the Park and took a short walk around the Visitor area to look at the different types of plants that are in the Park. It is the largest state park in California and the second biggest in the Continental states.

We would definitely like to come back in the Spring time when all the flowers are blooming. It is suppose to be spectacular. As we had items from the Market that need to be refrigerated we headed back with the intentions of coming back another day to do some exploring.

The owners of the park put on a  New Year Eve's Party with everyone bringing some appetizers and drinks. The owners furnished champagne for the Midnight toast. Of course, we had a few practice toasts before the official toast. We met some really nice people, including quite a few from Canada. Always fun to share RV stories with others. We had a great time and didn't make it back to our RV until after 1:00.

We had a great year visiting some places we had been before and many new places in the western part of the United States. Being from California and having taken many trips up and down CA, we still went to a number of great new spots, such as Avila Beach, near Pismo Beach, Ocean Cove Campground near Jenner and the Trinity Alps in northern CA. We did a lot of exploring in Idaho, another beautiful state, and up into Canada going as far as Jasper and Banff and thoroughly enjoyed their magnificent Rockie Mountains. We went to Waterton in Canada and Glacier, their sister site in Montana. Back to Yellowstone where we visited in 2003 was another highlight. We went to an Escapees event in Wyoming and stopped into our "home state" South Dakota. We had been to Colorado a number of times but our trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park was a first, different from the Canadian Rockies, but beautiful in their own way. We stopped in Moab, Utah for what was going to be a few day stop over and we ended of staying for 2 weeks. A great state park near Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. There were other places not mentioned here, just amazing how much we saw in this last nine months since we left So Cal in April. The last few months including Heather and Ryan's wedding as well as spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with family. Another great year and we are ready for more new adventures next year. What a life!!
Hope everyone had a great year as well. Have a Happy New Year.