“Got no mansion, got no yacht
Still I’m happy with what I’ve got
I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night”
~Irving Berlin
My final few days at Holtville Hot Springs were bittersweet.
It would be a stretch to say I made good friends there, but I met a few people who I had very pleasant conversations with. There was a young man, a veteran, and I later found out a resident of Slab City (for the most part) who came there to soak. He also picks up food in Brawley, CA from a grocery store who calls him when they have overstock or expiring food to make way for new deliveries. He sometimes takes the food to Slab City and sometimes brings it to Holtville Hot Springs camping area and leaves it on the “Free” table. I think he believes I’m poor and perhaps in need of food because he has often alerted me to free food on the giveaway table. We sat one morning in the hot tub together. He is a man of few words, but we did manage a nice connection and brief chat. He always waves at me when he sees me. There are a few other people, mostly Mexican men, who know my name. There have also been the crazies, mostly women, but a few men who just can’t shut up. They are mostly young (under 30) nomads, and for whatever reason, they not only know everything, but they also feel compelled to give everyone advice and the benefit of their infinite wisdom. My friend Marcos was returning from Mexico on Monday and texted me to see where I was. It turned out he was across the street at the hot springs, so I put on my swim trunks and went over to meet him. He wasn’t staying but stopped to figure out where to go for the night before heading to San Diego. While we were trying to catch up, a young man joined us in the hot tub and immediately tried to hijack the conversation. He heard Marcos telling me about where he stayed in Baja and immediately shouted over him saying that wasn’t the best spot and then telling us where we should go in Mexico. Marcos commented on my E-bike and I told him about my fall last November. The young man jumped in again and said “I’m a ski board instructor (he subsequently told us that 3 more times during the conversation) and I train my students how to fall. You need to fall on your forearms, not put your hands out which could break your wrists.” I thanked him for his unwanted advice and told him the next time I saw the ground racing toward my face and had exactly 6/10 of a second to react, I’d try to retrieve that information. He made catching up with Marcos difficult, but other people joined us and he soon started giving them directions on how they should live their lives.
On Tuesday, I started packing up. It was very windy and rained intermittently, so I didn’t get too far. I mostly went through stuff on the inside and got rid of old food. I came across some dried out tortillas and put them in the trash and I discovered I had 3 partly used loaves of bread. I kept the freshest and put the two older bags in the trash. I started putting things away. I’d been at Holtville Hot Springs for a month. I’ve never stayed anywhere that long before, and I realized that the longer my stay, the more things I get out from cupboards and drawers, and decide I’ll use them again soon, and leave them out. Item by item, I realized I had cluttered up my tiny space. I put my coffee maker away and put all my bottles of water and seltzer and tomato juice back in the tote where they belonged. I cleared my kitchen counter and put several t-shirts in my laundry bag. Since I had lived primarily in a pair of swim trunks, I sometimes put a shirt on to ride across the street to the hot springs and took it off to get in the water. I put it on to ride back “home” and took it off again. So even though I’d worn each shirt a few times, I probably hadn’t worn any of them for more than an hour total. I decided I had enough clean T-shirts to last a couple of months, so I put the ones I’d worn in the laundry bag.
Tuesday morning, I woke up before sunrise. I had coffee, did e-mail and worked my NY Times’ puzzles. I went outside and packed up the tent (it was still slightly wet from the rain) and tied my bike to the rack and put the cover on. I packed up my cacti, and my solar panels and got ready to head into Holtville one final time. I got water, gas, propane and food (Including a couple of donuts to enjoy for the next couple of days). From there I drove east toward Yuma and stopped at Pilot Knob LTVA. It wasn’t anything special—just a huge expanse of gravel and I only planned on staying one night.
Rigs were quite spread out, so I didn’t go very far in. I found a nice, level spot with nobody nearby and parked. I put my solar suitcases out and made lunch. I realized I was a bit giddy and decided that I was more excited than I had expected to be on the road again. I liked being far from other campers. People were parked way too close to me at the hot springs and I was very lucky to have found a tiny “inlet” surrounded by bushes for some privacy. But I was parked on a main “road” and people drove past me constantly all day long and into the night.
I got on my camping apps and started making tentative plans for where I’d head next. The goal is to get to Green Valley, AZ somewhere between April 5th and April 11th. I want to have some adventures in between. I can take the easy route, staying close to I-8 most of the way and having many choices of places to stop about an hour apart. Or I could take a route that I took a few years ago and head further south, into Ajo and visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument again. I enjoyed that route and the first part would be easy, but it would mean either back- tracking or driving a bit longer than I like in between stops. I haven’t decided yet. I don’t need to for another week.
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I woke up just before sunrise on Thursday. The sky was rapidly getting bright in the east as dark storm clouds were heading my way from the west. I checked the weather and the forecast was for heavy rain and wind starting around 11:00 a.m. I decided if I could get ready to leave before 9:00, I would head east to Mitry Lake as long as I could get ahead of the high winds and rain. If I didn’t feel like rushing, I would stay another night at Pilot Knob and head to Mitry Lake early Friday morning after the rain and wind subsided. I made coffee and got back in bed, read some headlines, and did my NY Times’ puzzles, but was restless. I got up, packed up and it was only 8:30, so I fed Cosmo and did a short walk before heading east. After only a short distance on I-8, Google re-routed us due to closed roads and construction. I drove easily on back roads through farmland and past lots of date trees. We arrived at Lake Mitry shortly after 10:00. We had come in from the north. I had planned on entering from the south, but having read other campers’ reviews, I knew the quieter, more hidden spots were to the north of the main parking area. I started to see rigs parked on offshoots from the main road and made mental notes. I saw a couple of options, but nothing jumped out to me as perfect by the time I hit the main parking area. I turned around and backtracked, and pulled into a spot about a mile deeper in. It was OK, but I wanted a nicer spot, closer to the lake. We continued on, pulling into dirt roads to the side. I still wasn’t convinced, so we kept looking. Finally I pulled down a windy dirt road leading to the lake and a dock. There were a few people who’d already settled in. I parked and took Cosmo for a walk and as we wandered I found a great unoccupied flat spot. I pulled the van into it and settled in. By the time we went for our next walk, everyone had left except for one 5th wheel about 500 feet across the way from us.
I considered moving right up to the lake, but decided I was already in a secluded spot and over the coming weekend, there would probably be a lot of day trippers using the lake. I knew they wouldn’t bother us where we were set up, so we stayed. I could always move after the weekend if I wanted to.
The clouds rolled in and the rain started. I was on solid ground, so no worries there. Having had a donut from my favorite spot in Holtville for breakfast, I decided I should balance that out by eating the papaya I bought yesterday. It did not disappoint.
Staying at the hot springs was a luxury, but it was not very photogenic. The scenery here at Mitry Lake is inspiring and being back out in the wild makes me feel so connected again, to what’s important in life. Sun, mountains, lake, and palm trees. Spectacular.
But the moon was not to be outdone, rising full and bright in the east, awaiting to be eclipsed by the earth in a couple hours.
Lessons From The Road: Limit my time at places where “Fauxmads” come to brag about being Nomads, and spend more time where real nomads actually live. Daily soaks in hot mineral baths are wonderful, but nothing compares to actual life in the wild.