The Great Stone Snake

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We were up early, before sunrise, and the sky looked like there might be a colourful sunrise, with scattered clouds on the horizon. So I got my camera out and began taking some pictures.

 

And we were right, the clouds turned a brilliant red.

 

And then a little later, the clouds took on a silvery hue.

 

Of course, on the other side of the sky, the moon from the night before was just setting in the west.

 

The reason for getting up so early was to go into town to the farmer's market, which happens every Friday morning from 7 AM until 11 AM. It takes place at "Christmas Circle", in the center of the huge (and I mean HUGE) traffic circle near the center of town. I don't know why this small town needs such a large traffic circle, and I don't know why it's called "Christmas" Circle. The farmer's market was quite good, and we bought a few things, including some very large grapefruit, which were really juicy and sweet. Normally, I don't like California grapefruit, but these were great.

 

We walked from the circle up to the center of town and stopped into the State Park store to get some information an activities going on. Here's the main street in Borrego Springs.

 

After we got back to the motorhome, Doreen and I decided to go on a little hike up to "The Great Stone Snake" (at least that's what we called it), which is situated amongst the small hills just to the west of our campsite. I had learned of this snake from the blog of a family from Ontario that camps in the Southwest each winter, and have a blog on the internet. They didn't say exactly where it was, but I found it on Google Earth, where it is quite plain to see (N33 18 02.3, W116 17 35.2).

 

It was only a kilometer away, but Doreen turned back as soon as she saw that we would have to climb up over a ridge. I persevered, however, and had no trouble finding it with the aid of our GPS.

 

As you can see, from the picture I took using our camera's timer, it is a fairly large structure, with fairly large size stones, which must have taken someone some effort to construct.

 

After I got back, we invited a fellow in a neaby truck camper over that we had met earlier on in the day. He is a 70 year old man named Martin from Armstrong, Ontario, near Thunder Bay, who has been traveling down in the Southwest since November. We sat out in the shade of Miss Travelaire for a couple of hours chatting about our travels. After supper, Martin came over and we had a campfire for the evening out under the stars.