D-rock, Jean (Lane's brother), Aurelien, Dave, and I took a trip to Anza Borrego to celebtrate the fleeting remains of D-rock's bachelorhood. The girls were going out dancing for Lane's party; we decided to go to the desert. Before leaving, D-rock had told me to bring lots of one-dollar bills. He claimed that they were for grapefruit in Borrego Springs. Aurelien and I debated about putting the box on the Subie. In the end, we decided to put it on. It was a good decision, as the car was packed to the ceiling even with the box. We brought a charcoal barbeque for our fire pit, lots of wood, and even more food. It was a lot of stuff for five people who were only going camping for one night. We left San Diego around 3:00 on Saturday.
The drive out was straight forward. We stopped in Santa Ysabel to get an apple pie. The Calcite Mine area is past Borrego Springs, close to the Salton Sea. We reconnoitered the road into Palm Creek Wash to ensure that the Subie would make it down. We took a left at the bottom and drove to the end of the road, at which point the wash really narrowed. We picked a flat spot for camp and left Dave, the cripple, to hang out while the rest of us strolled through the narrow bits. Dave broke his knee cap in half a few weeks ago. He typically spends most of the day perched on his "nest" in his apartment, with his leg strapped into a medieval torture machine that slowly moves his leg through about 20 degrees. Eight hours of that every day.
We passed one other group of campers on our stroll. The wash has some nice narrow sections with pretty impressive walls. Eventually we climbed out of the wash by following a smaller canyon and did some prospecting for Calcite. There was a nice Ocotillo at the top. It was kind of overcast, thankfully. It would have been brutally hot otherwise. On the way back Aurelien turned over a rock and found a little scorpion. It scurried away before we could get a picture, and didn't want to come out again.
We came back to camp to find Dave missing. He had taken a little stroll up the slope above our camp. He pretty much had to slide down on his butt.
We set to work on dinner. We had plenty of stuff. I set to work cutting tomatoes, onions, serrano peppers, and limes and D-rock tore up some cilantro for salsa. It was excellent. We pretty much finished it while we cooked the rest of our dinner; we were hungry. Aurelien broke open the Flor de Cana rum (Nicaraguan rum, for D-rock) and mixed up some punch with mango-banana juice, nutmeg, and a little cinnamon. We cooked up some rice, sauteed some onions and bell peppers, browned some sausage, and made guacamole. It all tasted extra good in the desert. It was pretty windy, so everything had a little sandy crunch. We sat around talking and sipping rum. We had some pie. Eventually D-rock fell asleep. We kept talking for a while, stared at the stars, and eventually called it a night.
Aurelien and I slept outside; everyone else slept in tents. It was a nice night and I slept really well. In the morning, Aurelien told us that he had woken up at one point to see a coyote a few feet from us. The coyote morphed into the infamous "coyote stripper of Borrego Springs" when telling Lane about D-rock's wild night. We had a round of hot chocolate and pie for breakfast. Dave strolled off with some toilet paper to use the bathroom. Not an easy proposition when one leg can't bend at all.
We set off on our hike. We walked back down Palm Wash to the access road, where we turned left and followed the road/trail to the Calcite mine. On the way to the mine we stuck to the high ground. The trail winds its way to the base of some low-lying mountains, occasionally descending and ascending through various canyons.
The Calcite mine is near the pock-marked rocks behind Aurelien. We wandered through the canyon behind Aurelien, Jean, and D-rock on our way back to camp.
Here's where it really hit home to D-rock that he was going to be married in a week. Either that or he had to stretch his neck, I'm not sure (he took four Advil in the morning because of a sore neck). We spent some time exploring the Calcite mine. The mine mostly consists of a bunch of trenches dug in the ground. Aurelien did a lot of prospecting. He found some nice pieces. They're scattered all over.
We stopped to climb this rock on the way back. We found some other excellent trenches behind the rocks, though these ones weren't part of the Calcite mine proper.
We dropped into another canyon after checking out the trenches and wandered down it until we joined the big canyon that would take us back to camp. We found Dave reading in camp. We packed up and headed back to San Diego. We stopped for a late lunch at Ker, our favorite Indian Buffet in San Diego. D-rock especially likes it because it is all-vegetarian. Mr. Ker, as we call the Sikh man who makes the Naan, offered us plenty of bread. He is the nicest man, always smiling and practically forcing food on people, and makes every trip to Ker enjoyable.
