Kramer's Big Adventure: Starting Again Oregon to Organ Pipe

We are back on the road again! Thank you for joining us as we take our trip down to California and east through Arizona and Texas along the Rio Grande River for birding.

We left home on December 1, and headed south down on I-5 staying 3 nights at Harvest Host Wineries. One night at Edenvale Winery in Medford; one night at Jessie’s Grove Winery near Lodi, CA; and one night at Giessinger Winery in Fillmore CA. We had a nice stay at each of them.

Our first destination was San Diego where we stayed for a week at at very nice campground resort on Mission Bay. We visited both the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, 30 miles north of San Diego. They are both absolutely fabulous and we spent a full day at each of them and saw tons of animals. Most notable was a 5 day old Giraffe, a 5 month old Giraffe and the back side of a Panda. At the Safari Park we took the African plains tramway twice and saw lots of beautiful animals. We also saw a duck billed platypus. Both parks are almost like a botanical garden and they are lovely places.

5 Day old Colt

5 month old colt and 5 day old colt behind adult

Rhinos on African Plain

Whole park is a botanical garden

One evening we went to “December Lights” at Balboa Park. It is a special festival in the park with lots of food and craft booths, holidays lights, music, and most of the museums in the park open for free. We went to the San Diego History Center, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, the San Diego Natural History Museum and the Botanical Garden. It was a fun time, but rather crowded.

Botanical Garden Conservatory

On Sunday, we took the light rail downtown and spent several hours on the waterfront. We walked through Seaport Village and the park beyond it; walked past the air craft carrier Midway; the Maritime Museum; and saw the Star of India and other very old ships. We took a very nice harbor cruise and saw lots of navy ships and other sights along the harbor. It was a very nice day.

Aircraft Carrier Midway

Star of Indian

"Unconditional Surrender" statute

Another day, we visited Cabrillo National Monument which honors Juan Cabrillo who was the first European to visit San Diego in 1542. It is on Point Loma and has beautiful views of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean. We saw the Cabrillo Statue, the old Point Loma lighthouse and the current Point Loma light station and took a walk on the very nice coastal trail.

One of the things that we really liked about the Mission Bay Area were the bike trails. The trails circumnavigate the bay and also go along the beach in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach. They made for very pleasant biking.

We really enjoyed our stay in San Diego.

After our week in San Diego, we moved east to Anza Borrego Desert State Park in Borrego Springs, California. It is a huge park of 650,000 acres. We spent 4 nights there and did quite a lot of hiking including the Borrego Palm Canyon, the “slots”, Hell Hole Canyon, and Surprise Canyon. We attended a talk about the Peninsula Longhorn Desert Sheep - there are only 800 of these sheep left and 400 of them live in the park but unfortunately we did not see any. We also enjoyed searching out the large medal sculptures placed around Borrego Springs in the Galetta Meadows.

Borrego Palm Canyon

Slot Canyon

Sculptures in the Galetta Meadows

We left Anza Borrego Desert State Park and headed east and south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Lukeville, AZ on the Mexican border. It is one of the few places in the U.S. where the Organ Pipe Cactus grows wild. We are lucky to have two right beside our campground. We spent 3 days at Organ Pipe and enjoyed our time hiking and taking some of their scenic drives.We drove 15 miles along the border and next to the Wall to Quitobaquito Springs to see some native pupfish that only live there. It is so strange have a big pond in the middle of the desert. We took a 4 mile hike to Victoria Mine. When we got there, we found that trail volunteers were stabilizing the rock walls of the cabin with natural material. That was interesting to see. It is a very beautiful place with cactus everywhere.