Another day we went with our friends, Darrell and Malia, to visit the hot springs and the China Ranch Date Farm in California. None of us knew exactly how to get there (GPS is VERY spotty in the desert!). However, another friend, Renee, had been there before and knew the way. Renee was our “tour guide” for the day. She imparted a lot of knowledge about the area all day.
Here are somephotos of the desert scenery we saw throughout the day.
First stop: the hot springs. Delight’s Hot Springs Resort and Tecopa Hot Springs and Resort are both located in Tecopa, CA. We looked at a hot spring out in the middle of the desert first. Then we looked at one of the resorts.
Our “guide,” Renee, is in the purple. Jack is bending over to feel the water temperature. After I put my hand in the spring, my hand felt SO soft all day!
Here are some photos of Delight’s Hot Springs Resort.
The pool is filled with water from the hot springs. There was even an area for RVs! The doors in this picture go to private hot spring tubs you can rent. Inside one of the private rooms.
On to the China Date Farm! The drive through the desert was beautiful. In order to get to the date farm we had to drive down a very narrow road with high hills on each side. It felt like we were driving through a gauntlet!
Here is a little history about how the date farm came about. The clumps of dates are covered with a tight weave mesh bag to protect them from the birds. The bags are left open at the bottoms, and I’m not sure whythat is. Maybe it’s to allow for drainage if it rains. This is the area outside the bakery and store. In the store you can buy dates and date nut bread. You can also buy all sorts of souvenirs made by locals. I wasn’t sure if I liked dates, but when I tried one, I absolutely loved it. The date nut bread was fabulous. However, the best thing we ate here was the date milkshake! IT WAS THE BEST!!
Needless to say, the date farm and hot springs were VERY interesting. We had a great day!
After all the Christmas chaos with family, we headed west from Aubrey, TX, to the great state of Nevada. We arrived at NevadaTreasures RV Resort, Pahrump, Nevada, on Jan. 10. Some RV friends from Wisconsin were also there for the winter. We looked forward to reconnecting with them.
As soon as we arrived, we both came down with COVID. It must have been the omicron variant because our symptoms were mild, but we were “out of commission” for a little over a week after arriving.
Pahrump has a population of about 44,000 people. It is located in Pahrump Valley in NYE County. It is about 62 miles west of Las Vegas. Of course, it has several casinos! Pahrump is surrounded by the Spring Mountain Range to the east and the Nopah Mountains to the west.
Here is something else interesting about the Pahrump Valley. Take a look at these signs. I have NEVER seen signs like this before!
Yes! That’s a picture of a donkey! I thought these homemade signs were really cute! They have wild horses and wild donkeys freely roaming around Pahrump Valley. Some times you even see them within the city limits. I never could get a good photo of any of them.
After resting a bit and reconnecting with our friends from Wisconsin, Darrell and Malia, we were ready to explore the surrounding area. Our first day trip was to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
The desert has its own unique beauty. Since it was winter when we visited, the desert was still pretty brown. I wish we could have visited in the spring when all the desert plants are blooming (but then it would MUCH HOTTER-no thank you!). Here are some of my pictures with a few captions.
If you zoom in, you can read about the ancient pupfish that live in the area. They are really small; they are about the size of minnows. Devil’s HoleWe could see the pupfish, however, there was no way for me to zoom in enough for them to show up in a photo.Believe it or not, but there is SOME water in the desert! This is Crystal Spring. You can barely see Crystal Spring.This is the new Visitors Center. It had a lot of informative inside. Behind the center is a boardwalk around a beautiful section of the desert where you can see more pupfish.Part of the boardwalk. You can see the Visitors Center in the top left corner. It was about a mile hike around the whole boardwalk.
While there, I tried to imagine what the refuge would look like with everything blooming and the animals coming back to life from winter hibernation. I bet it is really exciting and pretty.
