Rainy Weekend in the Desert

February 10, 2009

What can one do in the desert when it is raining? Nothing is always an option. We did work on our courses for Whittier College a bit and I worked on a present for Tamara's birthday. Saturday though we packed a picnic lunch, printed off several geocache locations and road off to do some caching.

The first one was on 78 on our way to before you arrive at the off road park. It was a different type of geocache since it was set up by a group that's goal is to find caches but to ALSO pick up trash along the road as well. Easy find, we took a very cool travel bug that we will take with us to Oakland to replant and we did pick up some trash. Arie photographed our "trash" and we did feel very earth conscious.

Next stop was the Off Road Park. The rangers there had established a cache and also had a delightful little plant walk that discussed the various desert features one might view such as alluvial fans, bajadas, etc. The find was an easy one and the bathrooms were clean. Arie thanked the rangers for the cache and one of them even lives in Borrego Springs! Arie told them that we were two old people getting our exercise, experiencing a new hobby.

We then came to our truly off road find of the day. Thank goodness Arie prints off the aerial shots of where the caches are located so we can sort of align ourselves to the landmarks. This one was about a half of a mile off the main road. Was a little sandy but since it was sprinkling and had been raining not too bad. The clue was a great one and we did leave footprints or the next explorer.

Lunch as we were driving along to Brawley, Imperial and El Centro. There was a TRIPLE rainbow as we drove along, the best was the full one. I don't believe I can remember such a vibrant rainbow. Hopefully, I can post a picture of the rainbows.

Our trip returned to geocaching in Imperial. Our next one was a cache that you find information and send it to the creator of the cache. He will then verify if you did find the cache and had the correct information. It was a clever one (yes, we did find it and was verified!). Great bathroom stop as well. This airport was a ghost town....absolutely no one in the airport as there are no flight really on Saturdays. United Express has flights twice a day in/out of Imperial to Los Angeles International (LAX).

We had one more geocache before hitting the movies in El Centro. Found the last one in the parking lot of Sears. Arie was very good deciding what the clues meant and was right on this one. We made the movies in time to see "The Wrestler". Good flick, too much violence for me in the fight scenes, but lots of pathos for my girly side!

Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall, great soup, Jun Po spicy noodle soup with shrimp, chicken and beef and lots of bok choy. We also had Kung Po shrimp and rice. We ended up taking it all home as leftovers. Made a great lunch on Sunday before we headed home to our other home in Whittier.