Tonight, we are at Emerald Desert RV Park in Palm Desert, CA. We have been coming to this facility for over a year now on just about a monthly basis to visit with the kids and the now one year old grandson. We will be here for two nights at this five star campground and heading back to Wickenburg on Sunday.
While we are relaxing and blogging about being here, getting here was quite another story. We left Bakersfield this morning at about 10:30 AM expecting about a four and one-half hour drive. Alas, when we got to Boron, CA, on the high desert we encountered an extreme traffic jam. When I say extreme, I mean the sort of delay where we went 6.2 miles from Boron to Kramer Junction in an hour and a half. That’s 4⅓ miles per hour on average.
The delay getting past the traffic threw us enough off schedule that when we got to the Inland Empire (San Berdoo, etc.) we were greeted with rush hour slowdowns on I-15, I-215 and I-10. The net result was that we had a late check-in at the campground (office closes at six and we were here at ten after). In spite of all that, we’re relaxed and unwinding from a rather unpleasant commute.
My brother lives in Victorville. I have held a long time interest in the geology of the high desert and more recently a anthropologic interest in the settling of those environs which range from north of present day Bridgeport to Palomar district in the south. Too bad you didn’t look into the history of Boron. It could very well be that the traffic jam presented you with that opportunity albeit a missed opportunity of that rich history.
Likewise, Kramer Jct. What a profound history for the settling of that area. And Paseo de El Cajon favored by roving gangs of murderous thieves in the Californio days. That pass is the western terminus of the old Santa Fe trail and at which point you passed from the Pacific plate onto the North American plate as you transversed the San Andreas fault. And Joaquin Murrieta, perhaps the most notorious horse thief, with his band of cut throats favored the El Cajon on there was back to Albuquerque and points east.
Only sparse placer gold in those parts but rich in evaporate deposits as evidenced by the townships of Boron, Trona, Quartizite, and others. Enjoy your stay, be ware of the dust (especially those of more placid eastern depositions), and do take note of the natural and manmade history of the ground you travelth.