Day Trip to El Centro

Yesterday we took a day trip to El Centro, CA. We had planned to go to Yuma to check out some RV parks for our next month, but Paddy’s research of the places there didn’t turn up anything of interest. He did find a couple of places in El Centro that looked good, so off we went.

This time no breakfast at the Flying J, though. We figured it would be a long day and wanted to get a jump on it, so we had cereal in Uncle Joe and skipped washing the dishes in order to get out early.

There was a terrible windstorm yesterday. When we got back in the evening we saw on the news that people were actually killed because of “sand out” conditions on the highway. We experienced a little of that ourselves, going through the Imperial Dunes Recreation Area south of Palo Verde. It was uncomfortable but not really dangerous as the blowing sand was low, kind of like little trickle waves crossing the road. Today is also windy and more is predicted tomorrow.

So, we drove west of El Centro about ten miles on I-8 and went to see the Sunbeam Lake RV Resort. It had looked pretty good on paper, but they were nearly full and only had one site available in January for people with a pet. We couldn’t convince them that Shaddy is family. The site wasn’t that appealing, so we passed on it.

Then we drove to the other side of I-8 about a mile and checked out the Rio Bend RV Golf Resort. We don’t play golf, but it offers lots of other activities. We found a site we liked but noticed that it was at the end of a driving range. We asked the person in the office if golf balls ever hit any RVs parked in that area and she admitted that yes, it’s been known to happen. Someone ended up with a broken window a few years ago. We rejected that one and signed up for another not-so-exposed site.

The one we chose has small oleander bushes growing on each side of it, sort of a low (3-4 feet) privacy hedge. It has a gravel pad for parking Uncle Joe, a small cement pad/patio with a tiny (2-3 feet) tree, and a gravel area to park The Beast. No grass anywhere. I’ll miss the grass here at River Breeze, and the river, and the trees, and the wide space we have, but Paddy wants activities, and there are plenty of those at Rio Bend.

We’ll be moving on January 6th, spend a month at Rio Bend, and then who knows? We’ll have 10 days after Rio Bend until we go to Tucson on February 15th. Stay tuned. . .