El Centro, California

The plan was to finish our blog posts about our winter/spring trip to Arizona, California, Nevada and back to Utah.  But on the date of my last post -- May 1 -- my Mom fell and broke her hip.  May 3 I flew to Ohio where Mom lives and where I grew up.  The operation to fix Mom’s hip (actually her upper femur) went well, as did recovery and physical therapy.  

Last Friday Mom came home. I’m still in Ohio with her and my brothers are a godsend.  So is Jim, who for now is in Utah with the house and the dogs. Jim and are are figuring out how/when we can get the two of us back together. And in the meantime, and as things are a little calmer, I’m going to try to remember what we did after Dateland, Arizona, and get it in writing. 

Anyway:  March 2017

There's a military RV campground in El Centro, CA, that Jim wanted to stop. So from Dateland, AZ, we drove 130 miles west to El Centro and spent two nights.

The El Centro Naval Facility is the winter home of the Navy's flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. El Centro is also where the singer Cher was born, which was news to me until I was so informed by the internet.

Once we got on base, our directions took us to a parking lot at a dead end street. The base police noticed us wandering around, stopped us, and lead us right to the camp host at the military RV park. No flashing lights, but very helpful. 

El Centro is the largest US city to be completely below sea level: 42 feet below.  It's about 100 miles east of San Diego and only about 10 miles north of Mexico, and in an agricultural area. We saw lots of hay, but the area also grows veggies (broccoli, asparagus, carrots, onions, beets,squash), melons, and citrus.

It was at El Centro that Maddie got violently ill again.  Poor baby.  She and I spent a lot of time one night walking outside and getting rid of what was ailing her.  Arlo was not far behind her in the sickness arena. We bought chicken and rice and for a couple of weeks that's all both dogs ate.

Other than cooking chicken and rice, we drove around El Centro. There are supposed to be some brew pubs nearby, but the ones we found were closed.  Both nearby museums -- Pioneers Museum in Imperial Ca. and the Imperial Valley Desert museum in Ocotillo were also closed.  Probably just as well, considering our doggie duties. We did find a chain brew pub called Burgers and Beer at the Imperial Valley Mall, and while we aren't normally fans of chains, the beer, food, and service were great.

Flags and retired Blue Angel planes as seen near the entrance of the El Centro Naval Facility.   The weekend before we arrived, the Blue Angels had put on a demonstration and we were told the RV park was packed. Not so when we got there. We had our pick of spots.