Last days at Catalina and on to Borrego

We are back!

Our apologies for not updating "you all" with new blog posts the last two weeks.

Left you with day 6 in Tucson's Catalina State Park on January 22.  Days 7 - 12 were pretty laid back. The hike we planned up Sabino Canyon was cancelled because of rain in the forecast.  We did numerous walks around the park with Breezie, went out to dinner, saw a movie, and did some sightseeing by car. That's about it.

Breezie wants Ellen's new hat and her wine

Afternoon clouds before the big rain

Our 13th day in Catalina (Thursday the 29th) we drove to the airport to pick up Patty P. She flew in to RV with us for 6 days. That livened things up somewhat!  It started to rain on the way back to the campground and pretty much continued until we left the area on Saturday.


Sue Cobb drove in from Las Cruces on Friday to spend the night and party with the girls.  It was a surprise for Patty and it was Patty's birthday as well so they had good reason to party like rock stars! It continued to rain all day Friday as well so we did nothing but sit under the awning and "wine" and eat a lot.

Girl's gone wild - Yeehaw!

Saturday was a travel day for us. We needed to drive 360 miles West to Borrego Springs for our one or two month stay at The Springs at Borrego RV Resort.  The plan was to leave by 9:00 am arriving at Borrego early afternoon with sufficient time to get all set up and ready for Super Bowl Sunday.

Patty was staying with us for the trip and would fly out of Palm Springs on the following Wednesday. Sue was planning on meeting a friend in Tucson on her way back to Las Cruces to attend a big rock and gem show.

However, it rained all night and was still raining when we got up Saturday morning. The park always has had signs posted about the potential for flash floods after heavy rains. The only road into and out of the campground goes through a low spot in a wash that is known to occasionally flood (in our 7 or 8 years of staying at Catalina we have never seen a drop of water in the wash). When it does flood, anyone in the campground can't get out and anyone wanting in can't get in.  The biggest worry for most is to be staying in the campground but leave to go shopping, dining, hiking, etc. and have a flash flood prevent a return to your RV for what sometimes can be days. Very problematic if you have left pets (or kids) behind.

To get on with this - Saturday I was naturally curious to see if there was any water in the wash so made the drive down to it about 7 am to have a look. Arrived there to see that the wash had indeed flash flooded during the night and there was an RV already stuck in the middle of it. No way we were getting out at 9:00 am!

The rangers had no idea at the time if or when we would get out that day. Their best guess was to plan on staying another night. So we watched and waited. The RV got pulled out with a tractor. The water began to recede slowly, but there was about 3 feet of mud and rocks in the road with the water still flowing swiftly. Eventually the water flow slowed sufficiently for the big front end loader to begin clearing the roadway. The water continued to fill the roadway with mud and debris but not as fast as the loader was removing it.

By 1:00 pm they had punched a hole through the wash and began letting anyone with a 4-wheel drive vehicle (no rv's) make the crossing while the heavy equipment continued clearing debris. By 1:30 the first brave rv'er who had a 4-wheel drive truck pulling a 5'er was allowed to attempt the crossing and made it. At 2:00 the rangers said it was safe enough at that time if any other rv's wanted out to go now!  More rain was falling and they expected the wash to flood again.  Ran back to pack up our rv and get to the wash.  We lined up at the water's edge and waited for the front end loader to get in front of us to lead the way across. With the bucket of the loader down scooping the still accumulating mud and water off the road in our path we followed it safely to the other side. The rangers repeated this one at a time for every rv wanting to leave.

We decided to get as far away from rain as we could get that day. Not sure if we could make it to Borrego.  But, Borrego was sunny and hot and we just wanted to get to our destination. So we drove the entire 360 miles and arrived at our new home after dark about 7:30 pm.  Long day. We have always talked about what a flash flood in the desert was like and now we know!