Adventures in the Desert - May 30-31, 2015 | Libi's California Adventure

We took the weekend to catch up on some CHL hunting-- since we have been so busy that we haven't gone out since February!!

We stayed in Palm Desert and then radiated out from there.

Our first stop was a little bit of a bummer... there is a private plaque here for Site of Anza Camp, March 1774 (CHL 103), but we couldn't get to it.

This Riverside County site is to remember the first non-Indian explorers who stayed here on March 16, 1744.

A second Anza expedition came through here on December 27, 1775.

If you see the crop of rocks off to the right-hand side of the photo-- that's where the plaque is. It's on private property and Ron didn't feel like trespassing yet today, so this photo will have to do.

Heading into San Diego County we came to the Oak Grove Stage Station (CHL 502).

Sadly this site wasn't open today, so we had to take photos from outside.

This is one of the last remaining stations from the Butterfield Overland Mail Route.

The mail route operated between San Francisco and either St. Louis, Missouri, or Memphis, Tennessee, from 1858 to 1861. During the Civil War this building was a hospital for the nearby Camp Wright-- which you will see next!

Nothing remains of Camp Wright (CHL 482), the Civil War post established in 1861 and abandoned in 1866.

The camp was named for Brigadier General George Wright, United States Army, who commanded the Pacific Department and California District from 1861 to 1865.

A short drive through a herd of flying grasshoppers we came upon Warner's Ranch (CHL 311).

From the state: In 1844, Governor Manuel Micheltorena granted 44,322 acres to Juan José Warner, who built this house. General Kearny passed here in 1846, and the Mormon Battalion in 1847. The first Butterfield Stage stopped at this ranch on October 6, 1858, on its 2,600-mile, 24-day trip from Tipton, Missouri to San Francisco, the southern overland route into California.

This site is open on weekends, but it doesn't open until noon- so we didn't get to go inside.

However, they are doing some renovations on the barns-- so we might have to come back to see how it looks in a year or two.

We traveled further south to the tiny town of Santa Ysabel to see the site of the Chapel of Santa Ysabel (CHL 369).

Santa Ysabel was originally an asistencia for Mission San Diego de Alcala. The present chapel was built in 1924 after a roof collapse destroyed the old buildings.

There are two interesting stories about the chapel here: the first is about the bells and the second is about a famous guest.
In 1846 two bells were purchased by the mission from Mexico-- they were purchased for six burro loads of barley and wheat, quite a deal! They were to be the oldest bells in all of Alta California to be rung for all important events in the town: weddings, services, births, etc. When the buildings began to deteriorate in the 1830's the bells were moved from the chapel to a temporary wooden structure seen below thanks to the San Diego History Center.

In 1926 the bells were stolen in the night-- all that was left were the clappers which were found by a local resident the day after the robbery. Since then the mystery of the bells has been part of the lure of this place. In 1966 and 2012 pieces of the original bells were found after anonymous tips-- but the full story of the bells is still unknown.
The second cool thing about this chapel is that Sacajawea's son, who served as a guide to the Mormon Battalion, camped here in 1847.

A short drive away we came to the town of Julian (CHL 412). I hadn't been here since I was in junior high school, so it was fun to come back and see how much (or how little) had changed.

Julian was founded by an ex-Confederate soldier Drury Batley who named the town for his cousin, Michael Julian. Gold was discovered in 1870 and caused a rush of people to settle here.

By 1906 most of the gold in this area was gone, but they discovered that farming was profitable here so many stayed. They are most famous for their apples and apple pie-- which we had to try... for historical purposes!

Julian is a really fun, small town destination. This weekend they were having a fiddle contest and so there were folks fiddling all over town.

We decided to eat here, since we were heading into the Anza-Borrego Dessert next. We hopped into the Julian Cafe and Bakery-- mostly because I loved their sign.

We ate a lovely brunch of eggs, french toast, pancakes,

and the cutest heart-shaped biscuts!

After finding a Julian pin for our satchel collection we hopped back into the car and set off toward the dessert. Our first stop was CHL 858 Pedro Fages Trail. In 1772 Colonel Fages left San Diego to search for army deserters. He and his men traveled through the Cajon Pass to the Mohave and Central Valley and finally ended up at Mission San Luis Obispo. During their travels they "discovered" the Colorado desert and the San Joaquin Valley (remember all of his plaques up there?).

This state plaque is a preview from a site yet to come-- however, any time we spot these plaques we have to stop and investigate.

This next site was hard to find if you weren't really looking. The plaque for San Felipe Valley and Stage Station (CHL 793) is located on a hillside above the road. If Libi hadn't been looking with her 8-year-old eagle eyes, we totally would have missed it!

From the state: Here the southern trail of explorers, trappers, soldiers, and emigrants crossed ancient trade routes of Kamia, Cahuilla, Diegueno, and Luiseño Indians. On the flat southwest across the creek, Warren F. Hall built and operated the San Felipe home station of the Butterfield Mail, which operated from 1858 to 1861. Later the station was used by Banning Stages and by the military during the Civil War.

Currently it has bees occupying the plaque, so we didn't linger too long!

San Diego County must really want you to work hard to find some of their plaques because this was another terribly challenging one to find! We drove along two incorrect roads before we finally decided to trust our instincts and stay on the road nearest the hills. Along that road we found this tiny little brown sign which directed us to...

The Butterfield Overland Mail Route (CHL 647). This plaque is up a trail on the side of a hill, so you have to work to get to it.

According to the state: The pass was used by loads of travelers including those from the Mormon Battalion, Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoaches, Kearny's Army of the West and folks traveling west to settle.

There are supposedly still wagon wheel ruts near here, but we couldn't find any-- despite a search from the air and ground.

In the photo above you can see our car from the plaque site-- it was quite a little hike up stone steps. Below Libi is showing you where the plaque is in relation to the tiny brown sign that indicates its whereabouts!

Next we drove further along the Butterfield Overland Road to Box Canyon (CHL 472). This road went by many names including the Sonora, Colorado River, Southern Emigrant Trail and finally the Butterfield Overland Mail Route.

"On January 19, 1847, the Mormon Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. G. Cooke, using hand tools, hewed a passage through the rocky walls of the narrow gorge for their wagons and opened the first road into Southern California."

Our next site was supposed to be open for visiting, but when we approached and found it closed Ron coaxed Libi into ignoring this sign so we could get some good photos.

The Vallecito Stage Depot Station (CHL 304) was built here in 1852. It served as an important stop of the first official transcontinental stage route from 1857-1859.

The station you see in the background of this photo is not the original-- it was built in 1934 to look like the original.

Libi was far more comfortable taking photos by this sign by the road, outside of the no trespassing gate.

Further on into the dessert, down yet another dirt road we came to a little brown sign pointing us to our next destination. We turned down a different dirt road and found Palm Spring (CHL 639). Some references call this site as Palm Springs while others say Palm Spring-- not sure which is correct.

We are happy to report that there is actually still a spring with palms here!! Yippee for truth in advertising!

This was yet another stop for travelers through the desert, as the state guidebook says: Here Mexican pioneers coming to California between 1862 and 1866 rested among the palms, here, too, came mountain men, the Army of the West, the Mormon Battalion, a boundary commission, '49ers, a railway survey team, the Butterfield Overland Mail stages, and the California Legion. This was the site of the Butterfield stage station built in 1858 by Warren F. Hall.

Along this dirt road we found lots of these peculiar bushes-- I thought they looked like plants that should be on the bottom of the ocean, on in the dessert.

After a little research by my darling hubby we discovered that these are called Fouquieria splendens or Ocotillo plants. They have cool orange blooms on top some of the year and happily we got to see them!

After re-tracing our steps along the Butterfield Overland Road we headed further east to Los Puertocitos (CHL 635).

Anza'a expedition came through this pass in December of 1775. In this group were 240 folks recruited from Mexico to be the first residents of San Francisco.

The next site proved to be too much of a challenge for us-- we did our very best using the coordinates we found online, but we couldn't get to the state plaque.

Thank goodness Ron is a confident and safe driver, with a good sense of humor, because the roads I had us traversing to attempt to locate this one were harsh!

San Gregorio (CHL 673) is located somewhere in here. Anza and his expedition camped here in 1774 and 1775. The water for these folks and their cattle were found from wells that were deeper than the height of a man that were dug into the sandy bottom of the wash.

We think that this is the road that led to the plaque-- sadly it is now blocked off so despite our best efforts, we didn't find it.

As you drive through Borrego Springs, you see these cool sculptures popping out of the desert. We saw elephants, boars, monks, and this cool sea serpent.

It was too cool not to stop and take some photos, so please forgive the CHL interruption :)

The next two sites were located down a closed off road, so this is as close as we could get to El Vado (CHL 634) and Santa Catarina (CHL 785).

El Vado was part of the Anza trail where they camped for three days in December of 1775. Santa Catarina is a spring named by de Anza when he camped here in 1774.

Our final site for today was possibly my favorite of the day, the Peg Leg Smith Monument (CHL 750)!

Peg Leg who was really named Thomas Smith was a local character here in Borrego Springs.

Legend has it that he was walking through the desert when he found gold. He returned home, told folks about his amazing discovery, and created maps telling folks where they too could find gold. The only problem was that he couldn't remember exactly where he found it, so the maps changed over time.

The plaque says that this may be the site where he found gold. If you want luck finding it, all you have to do is leave 10 rocks on this pile.

Each of us put 10 rocks on the pile in the hopes of tripling our chances, but we came away empty-handed!

As we left the Anza-Borrego Desert we finally got a photo of the sign. It was a great day in the desert!

Day 2:
After a great dinner and a swim in the hotel pool we were refreshed and ready to take on another hot day in the desert.

Our hotel had flamingos-- and Libi is one mingo loving girl-- so we had to take a few photos before we left.

Our first site of the day was at the General Patton Memorial Museum-- the Desert Training Center, California-Arizona Maneuver Area - Camp Young (CHL 985).

General Patton created the desert training centers-- of which we will see several of the seven today-- to train troops who were headed to Africa for combat during WWII.

The camps were opened in 1942 and during their two years of existence-- over a million men trained here.

The Patton museum wasn't open yet, but it would be fascinating to return and learn more about this interesting guy (Patton, not his dog-- although I would be curious to learn about both!)

Here you can see a map of the entire training center that crossed CA and Arizona deserts.

There is also a second state plaque on the site here-- it proved to be a challenge to find for us. For those of you looking after us, head into the corner of the parking lot near the road and you will find the plaque.

The Contractors General Hospital (CHL 992) was built by Dr. Sidney Garfield in 1933.

He built the hospital to care for Colorado River aqueduct workers. The building still exists about six miles away from the plaque, so we stopped to snap a few photos.

They prepaid for insurance so their care would be covered. Later Garfield partnered with Henry Kaiser to create Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit prepaid health care program.

Next we drove out to Blythe along the California Arizona border to find the Site of Blythe Intake (CHL 943).

Sadly the state plaque has been stolen, but a few private plaques still remain.

On July 17, 1877, Thomas Blythe, a San Francisco financier, filed the first legal claim for Colorado River water rights.

The diversion dam and canal opened in 1877 to irrigate this valley and make possible settlement here.

The next site was also missing its state plaque, but it more than made up for it with the site!!

We headed to the Giant Desert Figures (CHL 101) also known as the Blythe Intaglios.

As the sign says-- somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand years ago, these figures were left on the desert floor.

Happily they have survived and are still around for us to see.

Here is an aerial photo of what you see in our photos.

This is one of the human figures-- legs toward the bottom of the photo, head toward the top.

There are also animal figures left in the dirt--

here is the serpent.

Another human figure-- one is male and one is female. You can determine which is which.

Here Libi and Ron recreate the figures.

The final figure is a horse-- head is toward the bottom of the photo with the body going across the left side and the legs coming down. There is a really cool video from a drone you can view here.

The next few sites were all desert training centers-- some with plaques and others without. The first one is Desert Training Camp-- Camp Iron Mountain (CHL 985) which is actually in San Bernadino County-- not Riverside like we've been in.

We found a really great video about the Desert Training Centers that you can watch on YouTube. There is a relief map of the desert somewhere near this site (which you can see on the video), but we couldn't find it while we were here.

The next site is Desert Training Center- Camp Granite (CHL 985).

There is absolutely nothing here-- no plaque, no site, just lots of sand!

This is where we hit the highest temperatures of the trip-- 109!! We were thankful for our amazing car with air conditioning!

The final Desert Training Center for today was Camp Coxcomb (CHL 985).

According to the video there are two different altars (meant for worship services) here that remain from the camps, but sadly we didn't see them while we were there.

We took a little non-CHL detour to see a different kind of famous site-- the dinosaurs from the movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, a.k.a. the Cabazon Dinosaurs.

Ron has fond memories of these guys from this movie which he watched a ton growing up.

Libi and I thought it was good, ol' campy fun--- so we were all in!

The dinosaur they are standing on below is actually a store...

you climb up inside the tail of this dinosaur and shop inside its belly. Totally worth a stop, even if you only have a few minutes like we did.

Back to the official historical landmarks now . . . We came upon this next site quite by accident-- we drove past it, I saw the plaque, so we turned around to get it only to discover that the rest stop it is located in was closed for repairs. Since we didn't want to stop along-side the very busy freeway we got photos and videos as we drove by.

What's even more frustrating is that this site Saahatpa (CHL 749) marked our half way point in completing our California Adventure (554 out of 1108). Here's the video of us driving by:

We would have loved cool photos with Libi celebrating being half way through, but sadly this will have to do.

Now, about the site-- in 1851 the Cahuilla Indians moved to Saahatpa and settled. This particular group of Native Americans helped white settlers in the San Bernardino area defend their land against outlaws during the 1840's. During the winter of 1862 a smallpox epidemic swept through the village. The Natives blamed blankets they had been given by the government as being infected with the disease. In 1863, Saahatpa was abandoned.

Our next two sites were also fenced off and closed to us-- but with a little ingenuity we got some okay photos. The two sites were the Yucaipa Adobe (CHL 528) and the Yucaipa Rancheria (CHL 620) in San Bernardino County.

The adobe is believed to be the oldest house in the county. The land used to belong to Mission San Gabriel, but it was granted to the Lugo family in 1842. The Rancheria refers to the village that a group of Serrano Indians lived in. They called the land Yucaipat which means "wet lands."

Next we made our way to the beautiful mansion in Redlands called Kimberly Crest (CHL 1019).

The house is an example of Chateauesque architecture that was constructed in 1897.

It was originally built for Mrs. Cornelia Hill who wanted it designed after a French castle she saw while visiting Europe. The home cost around $10,000 to build-- when you see the home you won't believe that it cost so little!

In 1905 the home was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Kimberly-- of the famed Kimberly-Clark Paper Company. Eventually it was passed down to their daughter who gifted it to the city.

We got there too late for a tour, but we will absolutely be back to see the inside of the home and explore the gardens some more! If you want to visit you can check out their website.

We continued journeying through Redlands to visit the Zanja (CHL 43)-- a glorified ditch!

The Spanish missionaries introduced irrigation to the area. With the help of the Natives, this zanja was dug to supply water to the San Bernardino Asistencia.

The A. K. Smiley Public Library (CHL 994) was the next site. Albert K. Smiley and his brother were east coast folks who wintered in Redlands. They both felt the need for a public library and worked to secure a temporary one in the YMCA. When that solution proved to be too much for the demand, Mr. Smiley bought some land and built a proper library building.

The library is surrounded by Smiley Park also named after Mr. Smiley and his brother. To read the full story of the library you can look here.

Behind the library we stopped for a brief moment into the Lincoln Shrine. We will have to come back when we have more time to explore because it looked spectacular!

The San Bernardino Asistencia (CHL 42) was an outpost of the San Gabriel Mission.

It was constructed around 1830, sold to the Mormons in the 1850s, and was restored in 1937 by the WPA and the San Bernardino County Historical Society.

Our next site has been moved a bit from its original location into a lovely park that is going to house some historic buildings from around town.

From the state: Guachama Rancheria, renamed San Bernardino on May 20, 1810 by Francisco Dumetz, became the San Bernardino Rancho of the Mission San Gabriel in 1819. The adobe administration building stood 70 yards north of this spot, an enramada served as the chapel, and a zanja was constructed to bring water from the mountains for irrigation. Control by mission fathers ended in 1834.

At this point we were all hot and tired-- as evidenced by the fact that Libi fell asleep while we were unsuccessfully trying to locate Fort Benson (CHL 617).

Jerome Benson was engaged in a land dispute with some Mormons in 1856. He built a "fort" out of earth and mounted a brass cannon on top of it.

Happily no blood was shed here as the dispute ended when the Mormons returned to Utah.

For our final site of the weekend Libi was awake! Agua Mansa (CHL 121) means gentle water-- which is quite ironic because this settlement was destroyed by... you guessed it... FLOOD!!