Armchair Adventures
for Feb. 19, 2012
by Paul Sullivan
Borrego Springs-at the Heart of It All
Sooner or
later every travel writer comes across a place that tugs at the soul. It might
be east or west, mountain or seashore, but the writer wonders if publicity
could contribute to its
"discovery," which may bring a loss of the color and character that
made it special in the first place.
Borrego
Springs, California, is that
kind of place.
It would be
wrong to call this quiet-literally and figuratively-village in the desert east
of San Diego a sleepy outpost. The
3,500 souls who call it home, many of them escapees from California's
supercharged coastal cities, are attracted to its seductive beauty and the
absence of anything frantic about daily life there.
Borrego
Springs is unusual if not unique in so many ways. For starters, this high
desert community, sprawling over 44-square-miles, is landlocked-totally
surrounded by the massive, 620,000-acre Anza-Borrego
Desert State Park.
Last week I
wrote about the park, one of the nation's finest desert playgrounds for outdoor
lovers-artists, astronomers, off-roaders, campers and cyclists, rock hounds and
many others.
Borrego
Springs is, you might say, the human capitol of the park, whose visitor center
lies two miles west of the town center at Christmas Circle, on Palm
Canyon Drive.
You can cross the street anywhere you like here, traffic is
always light and it is one of those places with no traffic lights and not
enough business to attract the fast-food chains.
But this is
no dusty cowboy town, and among its assorted stores a curious tourist can find
any necessity and quite a few non-essentials, as well as a nice variety of
places to dine. (Pssst: newbies have to ask to find the food market.) And there
are two small malls.
In our
brief stay earlier this month, my friend CG and I had dinner at Carlees,' just
off the circle, and liked our breakfast so much at Kendall's
Café that we made a return visit. (Leftovers from Carlees were bountiful, so we
stashed 'em in the fridge in our room, where they made an ample second-night's
feast.)
A quick
internet search for lodging lead us to think there were scant choices. Wrong.
We discovered while wandering about town, that there are more than half a dozen
that appeared to be fine. We chose the Borrego Springs Resort, which with an
internet-only special came to a more-than-reasonable $79 a night. I would have
expected to pay double that amount for the accommodations.
Next
time-and there definitely will be a next time-we'll opt for camping under the
blazing desert star-fire and spend the last night or two at the Resort.
Borrego
Springs is an astronomers' paradise, with dark skies to define that term and
the official "dark sky" designation from the International Dark Sky Association.
Incidentally, those who have never seen the heavenly sights from a high-desert
locale have a memorable moment in store-no place else can compare.
For those
who miss a city culture fix, I would point out another highly unusual feature
of Borrego Springs: Scattered hither and yon are enormous, dramatic metal
sculptures of prehistoric (extinct) creatures unearthed in Anza-Borrego by
paleontologists. We saw several and, together with an excellent display in the
park visitor center's small museum and accompanying film, we felt ourselves on
a journey of discovery.
For those
who might like to sample life in a low-key desert resort, just remember this
single, overriding fact: this is a true desert place. That means you visit from
November through March; never in summer. True desert rats can ignore this;
others should not.
And
although I drove 300 miles from Arizona to reach Borrego Springs, I recommend
that East Coast travelers instead fly to San Diego, rent a car and drive the
less than 100 miles. Hopeless urbanites might give it a couple of days.
Hard-core outdoor types allow a week…each winter.
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