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A World Apart
BORREGO SPRINGS/JULIAN REPORT
© 2003
by Darryl Musick
It’s one of the very few places in this state I had still not visited. No wonder, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the little town in its center is a good two hours from the nearest Interstate no matter which direction you arrive from. I had always wondered what it’s like here and now, finally, I have my chance to learn.
Leaving Los Angeles at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, it took us until sundown to cover the 140 or so miles to get here. Once we left Interstate 15 in the tiny town of Rainbow (just south of Temecula), it was a rather windy but beautiful drive through the several Indian reservations to get to the infamous Warner Grade descent into the desert.
If you’ve every seen that old Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz movie where
they bought that huge trailer, you’ll remember the scene where they gingerly
navigate that very windy, narrow road while her collection of boulders
roll about in the trailer. That road is Warner Grade and it’s steep,
windy, two-thousand foot elevation descent it our route down from San Diego
County’s mountain country to the dry desert below.
Sunset over the desert.
Of course, you could always take the bus. San Diego Transit runs two accessible lines up here (878 & 879) Tuesday through Saturday, but I didn’t have any success at pulling up their schedules from their website (www.sdcommute.com).
As it was for us, we had the road to ourselves so we didn’t rush it. The setting sun painted the surrounding mountains pink and our only concern was finding our hotel when I’d left the directions at home.
The Borrego Springs Resort advertises it’s golf course. We can see the whole town of Borrego Springs as we come down from the mountain and there’s two golf courses. That gives us a 50-50 chance of finding it on our first try. That first try deposits us as the Roadrunner Club so looking across town we see the other golf course and head to it. Second try puts us at our hotel.
I can’t imagine a higher season than winter for this place. It’s full of snowbirds from Minnesota, Washington, and Canada but the Borrego Springs Resort is almost empty. Business must be slow because they’ve got some great cut-rate rooms on sale. The normal two-queen room is $75. At check-in I ask for and receive and upgrade to a two room suite for an extra $25.
It’s not accessible in the 100% sense. The accessible suite had minimal access amenities such as bars around the toilet, in the bathtub, and such but the regular suite had a roomy bathroom, bars in the tub, a counter to hold onto next to the toilet, an extra bed, and a kitchen (which the accessible one didn’t have).
We had a nice balcony with a view (along with a warning to keep our patio door closed due to desert wildlife) and the hotel featured two swimming pools, spa, and fitness room. It was a very comfortable suite with lots of room to roam. The hotel also has an expensive restaurant so we had a weeny roast in our room for dinner (there wasn’t any inexpensive snacks on the menu, which is what we were looking for this particular not-too-hungry night) and settled back into conversation and reading.
The next morning, we cooked a nice steak and eggs breakfast in the room and headed out to explore. An hour's drive over 26 miles of scenic road put us in the mountain town of Julian. This very pretty old mining town is a big getaway for San Diego residents.
Apple farms are big up here and just about every other business
is a pie shop. For us, it wasn’t picking out which pie shop was the
best (which they all claimed to be), it was more a matter of finding an
accessible one. After being stymied by one shop with stairs and another
tiny bakery where the chair wouldn’t fit in, we settled for Mom’s which
had one small step to negociate at the front door.
Meeting the locals at Mom's
Over slices of bumbleberry pie (boysenberry, blackberry, and raspberry) and coffee, we got to know Wally. Wally is a friendly one-eyed chap who likes to poke around the old gold mines and salvage what others have left behind. He showed us an impressive vial full of nuggets he’d found and made us promise not to ask or reveal where he mined.
He was dressed in old time miner’s clothes and others in town were dressed up like cowboys, buffalo hunters, and civil war combatants. It seems that we arrived on Historical Julian day where people were invited to dress up in old costumes. Everyone was invited to stop off at the Chamber of Commerce to vote for their favorite character of the day. Since Wally befriended us, we made sure to throw some votes his way.
Many old towns like this have the usual kitschy souvenir shops but I have to say that although they certainly do exist here, Julian also has quite a few unique shops that I haven’t seen too many other places. My wife spent an hour at the Birdwatcher shop which features everything a birder could ask for. Julian Cider mill had plenty of local ciders, honey, and preserves around its warm wood stove. The KO Ranch up the street is a rock hound’s paradise, and of course you can’t go five steps without an opportunity to have a slice of delicious pie.
Accessibility is a mixed bag in Julian. Many of the old buildings have steps but more than a few have been retrofitted or are of a new vintage where wheelchair access is built in. There are many B&B’s here but didn’t see to much downtown that was accessible with the exception of the newer Julian Lodge. San Diego Transit does serve Julian with an accessible bus if you don’t have access to a car Tuesday through Saturday.
We left and dropped back down to the desert and headed over to the visitor’s center for Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The visitor’s center is built underground here. Inside is a museum, gift shop, and a theater. Outside is a nice quarter-mile accessible trail covering a good representation of what’s in the park. There is also a pond where the endangered desert pup fish live, along with hundreds of bees.
The thing to do here it seems is to find a volunteer, tell them what kind of car you have, and they will tell you what roads would be suitable. For instance, an exchange I overheard went something like this...
“I want to know where I can take my SUV”
“What do you have?” asks the volunteer.
“A Mitsubishi Montero”
“OK, that has an 8" ground clearance, so you should be good in this wash, or this canyon...”he trails off as he points to the map.
Pretty cool little service if you ask me. Of course for us it’d be “You have a wheelchair van with 3" of clearance, the parking lot outside would be okay for you as well as the driveway coming in....don’t take it anywhere else though...”
I bought a star chart for later since the NEAT Comet was supposed to be visible shortly after sundown. I asked a few volunteers about it but no one with an astronomy bent was on duty this day. After walking around the trails and visiting the museum, it’s off to the pool.
It is winter and it’s just slightly chilly, so even though the pool is nicely heated, we decide to skip it and just soak in the spa for awhile which was really nice.
Now we come to our slightly bizarre and teenage moment of the weekend. Since it’s Tim’s birthday, we are giving him a lot of latitude in dictating our agenda this weekend. Tonight, our NBA fan needs to be at the hotel at 5pm so he can watch the 3-point shooting and slam dunk contests of the NBA All Star Game. OK, it’s 3:00, we can grab a late lunch/early dinner and everyone will be happy. Off we go...
We had heard that the Krazy Coyote Grill was very good. So, we drive to the west end of town and find on arrival a closed down hotel and grill that looks like everybody just left five minutes ago except that someone decided to demolish a couple of bungalows on the way out.
Seriously, it was eery. There was still sparkling clean water in the pool. Lights on in the office, curtains in the windows, brochures in the rack, and working soda machines in the halls. The only thing was the place was completely abandoned without a car in the parking lot. With the whole place sitting way off by itself away from town, it was very strange.
OK, let’s leave this Flying Dutchman of a hotel. I saw an
add for what looked like a nice steakhouse at the airport so off to the
other end of town we go but the place is closed from 2:00 to 5:00.
Alright, I remember seeing a restaurant and saloon at another hotel by
the visitor’s center. Back across town we go. Despite the place
being very crowded, the restaurant again is closed 2:00 to 5:00.
“Hey, remember the Sunset Grill we saw yesterday?” my wife asks.
We drive across town yet again and...it’s only open for dinner starting
at 5:00pm. This is getting old. Back in the middle of town,
we arrive at Carlee’s which is more bar than anything else but they do
serve food!
One of the local beer drinkers assures us it’s good and that Tim would be welcomed there. He’s right, Tim has a big, fat cheeseburger, I have a steak sandwich, and my wife has the chicken quesadilla. Finally, we eat and are satisfied and it’s back to the hotel.
Tim sets up to watch his thing and the wife and I go for a bird walk on the golf course. Other than a few cormorants, ducks, two albatross, and a whole bunch of ravens and sparrow, we don’t see too much. There are a few stray grapefruit trees (Borrego is famous for its pink grapefruit), so we pick a souvenir fruit.
After dark, we head back out again with our star chart. It takes awhile but we finally find that comet. It’s not exactly overwhelming but the view of Jupiter with its moons is breathtaking.
It’s a perfect moment of night-time bliss so we enjoy a bottle of wine under the stars before heading back in to see who made the most perfect slam dunk. I just happen to think it’s this great little overnighter here in the desert.
THE BUDGET (two nights, two adults, one teenager)
Hotel - $212
Food - $50
Gas - $55
Total - $287
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