Borrego Springs - Old-TIme Desert Paradise

Friday, November 15, 2019
Borrego Springs, California, United States
As a place on the map, Borrego Springs has long intrigued me.  It is the only significant settlement in the eastern half of San Diego County, east of the mountain barrier and deep in the desert.  Even the word significant is questionable since it has a permanent population of only about 3,500.  By California standards, that’s minuscule.  Surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the town is a natural base for exploring the region, but what would it be like, I wondered.
Well, for me it turned out to be a kind of paradise, a small town surrounded by desert and mountain wilderness with scattered small resorts, a place with no traffic signals and barely any stop signs, a place with no chain motels, chain restaurants, or chain stores, and where there are barely any cars on the main street through town. I suppose mid-November when I was there wasn’t yet full high season, but the temperatures were tolerable. It’s what I imagine the Palm Springs area and some smaller towns like Ojai and Escondido toward the coast to have been like in the 1940s and 1950s when they were small resort and farming towns before getting incorporated into the megalopolis that Southern California has become. It’s remote enough from the bright lights of the massive metropolis that it has been designated as an official International Dark Sky community.  And I can attest to it that as I car camped there that the skies truly are dark and you can see an impressive array of stars as you might in Montana or Wyoming. If I were to become a snowbird, this is a place I might consider for my winters. There are apparently four public golf courses, a tennis center, and several country clubs, but Borrego Springs is nothing on the scale of Scottsdale or Palm Springs.
I was told that some people make Borrego Springs a destination for what is known as its “Sky Art”, but I was completely in the dark about it until I arrived. “Sky Art” or perhaps more appropriately called “Rust Art” is the sculpture work of artist Ricardo Becerra, dozens of large metal sculptures scattered through the desert surrounding the town based on several themes – Fossil Treasures of Anza-Borrego, History and Nature of Anza-Borrego, and Whim and Fantasy.  Thus, the sculptures include extinct early mammals like saber tooth cats, mammoth, and giant ground sloths, dinosaurs from more ancient prehistory, historical figures ranging from desert explorers to modern farm workers. It’s actually quite fascinating and the setting in barren landscape of mountains and desert stunning.
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