This afternoon, we packed into the SUV to visit Font’s Point.  The skies were pretty ominous at our RV when we left:

We drove down the road on S-22 for a few miles, then drove up a wash for 4 miles to Font’s Point.  Font’s Point overlooks the local badlands:

The badlands are hundreds of feet below the point:

The badlands to the East show a rich selection of colors:

Holes in the clouds cast dramatic light onto the badlands:

There was a crew at the point building structures (seen here on the left) for filming the movie Last Days in the Desert.  We’ve seen them over the last couple of days as we’ve toured the area, but we only found out today from the crew building structures here what the story is:

….And, Action!

Yessir, another beautiful morning in Anza Borrego State Park:

After homeschool, we headed out of town to explore “The Slot”, a Slot Canyon in the Southeastern corner of the park.  The canyon starts out moderately narrow:

There are a couple narrow spots:

Flash floods carve interesting patterns into the canyon walls:

At last we reached the narrow section:

Even for our daughter, it was a tight fit:

After 100 yards or so we popped out into a wider section:

We walked out for half a mile into what became a more conventional canyon, then turned back:

On the way back, we were passed by a tour jeep.  The driver managed to get it surprisingly far up the canyon:

At one point we realized we were being watched.  This fellow was about five inches across:

The canyon walls are made up of many layers, some of which are composed of a coarse conglomerate:

From the top, it doesn’t look like much:

We arrived back at the RV towards sunset, and decided to drive a couple miles North of where we are parked to Clark Lake.  Not the best fishing this time of year, I guess.  It’s a storied area, the lake once hosted a military airfield and later a radio observatory:

There’s also an abandoned mining facility at the edge of the lake:

Another great day at Anza Borrego!

After homeschool this morning, John and I headed out for a 45 ride South and East of Borrego Springs that included Yaki Pass, a 1200 foot climb.   On our way out, we passed a Read Tailed Hawk sitting on the side of the road, taking flight as we passed.  A few miles from the end, a rabbit ran across the road about 40 feet in front of us, followed an instant later by a coyote that was in hot pursuit.  John pointed out that, on the bright side, at least there aren’t any deer out here to hit.

We also stopped by a private airport community where the houses were built along the runway have airplane-sized hangers.

Riding in 70 degree weather with views like this in the middle of winter makes this cyclist feel pretty lucky:

We were treated to another beautiful sunset tonight:

Tomorrow we hope to explore a slot canyon or two.

Today in Arduino class, our son and I wrote a bit of code to display the current value of a thermistor, the little blue fellow in the photo below.  We intend to create a program to turn the bathroom fan on and off automatically based on air temperature:

In the afternoon we drove into town and filled a propane tank as well as our 45 gallon fresh water bag.  We then drove to the visitor center to begin our hike into Palm Canyon.  The clouds cast interesting shadows onto the mountains:

The first half mile or so from the visitor center to the campground is paved:

The kids brought their cameras along:

After walking through the campground, we entered Palm Canyon:

Interesting leaves:

At last we reached a point where the stream that creates the palm oasis above flows down towards the valley:

Looking upstream:

At last, we could see the palm oasis.  Apparently, natural palm oases are quite rare:

As the sun set, we hiked back on the “alternate trail”, which gave us great views of the valley with a beautiful sunset as company:

Unfortunately, my phone ran out of power before the hike completed, so the track below is not complete:

Shabbos was windy and restful.  We went for a short walk and looked out over the now-dry Clark Lake.

Today we homeschooled for most of the day, then drove into town to get rid of our trash and pick up some groceries.  On the way back to the RV, we visited the metal sculptures on the South side of town:

Tomorrow we hope to get an earlier start so we can get in a hike before sunset.  Now that we’re back in the Pacific Time Zone, we’re back to sunset around 5pm.