Desert Blooms
Escape From El Nino
It was supposed to be a relaxing reprise of Star Party 1, which was held some four months earlier. However, the experience turned out to be very different than we expected. This time the 'Team' numbered about 1/5th of the original Star Party battalion in count, partly because the date picked was not a holiday as it was for SP1 (Thanksgiving97). Key motivators for choosing 17-Mar-98 were the fact that there was no moon, so the seeing would be optimal for the telescopes and the desert flowers were supposed to be in peak season.
Disaster(s) Strike
 | A message was supposed to be put on a central answering machine to guide the rest of the partiers to the camp site. However, the cell phone which was carried along to relay the message didn't work. Now everyone else, Vicki and I included, had to guess where the chosen Star Party site was. Fortunately, stringing crime scene tape around the area did the trick and everyone arrived ok. |
| Almost immediately after the sun went down on the first day, Friday, the clouds started to roll in. The only visible stars were in the southern skies and even they succumbed to the relentless march of the weather. There was to be no telescope-fest that night so we had to be content with a communal dinner, talk around the camp fire, and spirits of the alcoholic kind. |
| Late on Friday the winds whipped up and the temperatures fell into the basement. Vicki and I were snug in our rented 24ft Tioga Arrow RV. It had virtually all the comforts of home; heat, microwave, stove, oven, refrig, freezer, and full bath... Only one problem, the battery that runs the heater was weak and conked out in the middle of the night leaving us without warmth. Fortunately, we brought enough blankets to fend off 40 degree temps. The others weren't so lucky. Kurt and Sue only had a tent... well, they're young and will learn. |
| And then the rains came... It poured buckets for the next two days with little respite between the squalls. I had given up a golf game with my buddies for solitude and more cerebral activities in the desert... or so I thought. No matter though, we made an art form out of the progressive party concept, moving from one camper to the next, eating, drinking, telling stories, and generally having a good old time. (Epilogue: I found out later that the weather was WORSE back in San Diego. The golf game was canceled and no one back there had as much fun or adventure as we had.) |
| Finally, on Sunday, we headed up to Borrego Springs for a look at the flowers. Our first stop was the visitors' center for Borrego State Park. The nice ranger informed us that the desert flowers come in three stages, ground flowers, bush flowers, and cactus flowers. In a normal year, all three phases happened in tight succession... in a normal year. However, and you just knew this was coming, this was not a normal year. This year El Nino had dumped enough rain on the desert to cause the ground flowers to bloom early. The good news is the blooms were thick and spectacular. The bad news is, we had missed them! And the bush flowers had just started to come out. The cactus flowers were only buds. So, we had struck out on the flower front. |
| As we exited the Visitors' Center, we spotted several cars with snow on their roofs. We asked one guy who was scraping mounds of the white stuff off the grill of his BMW where he had picked it up. He said he had come through Julian in near white-out conditions and didn't know how much longer the road would be open. Ok, you guessed it, our return route to San Diego goes through Julian and multi-ton RV's are not the best vehicles for negotiating twisty roads up a mountainside in the snow.... with no guardrail. Anyway, the Gods were smiling on our little band. The snow had subsided to flurries, leaving a spectacular winter landscape in its wake. |
Things to Note in the "Star Party II" Photos
| Paws was doing poorly but rested comfortably with Vicki all weekend. She was put down the following week, suffering from congestive heart failure. The second photo of Vicki and Paws is the way I like to remember the old girl... Paws that is. |
| Look in the distance on the third photo and you can clearly see the snow covered mountains that surrounded our camp site. Camp elevation was 1,500ft and snow level started at 2,500ft. We were boxed on three sides by mountains reaching almost 4,000ft. The scene was almost surreal, snow-covered mountains with barren desert in the middle. Very cool. |
| In the 4th shot, taken at the Visitors' Center, we ran across a camper even better equipped than our own. This old International Scout camper conversion had been around the block a few too many times, but it sported a satellite TV dish that would be envy of any techno-geek. |
| The last three pictures should drive home the point that there IS weather in San Diego... you just have to drive to it, it doesn't come to you. Frankly, having lived much of my earlier years in the frozen Midwest, I like it this way. |