Clothing Optional…

After a great week in San Diego, headed back eastward with a destination in mind. I had originally contacted the DeAnza Springs Resort back when I was in Mexico about staying there as I was bored with El Centro and wanted to try a new place. Had some confusion about their prices, so I contacted them via em and the manager happened to get my email and responded directly. There’s a link to my blog as part of my email signature and the manager offered to give me a discount if I’d give them some exposure. Well, sure I can! So the offer was a weeks stay for $125 instead of $256. The offer was pretty good, and I did want to visit, that lowered price changed my plan from a 2-3 day stay to a 7 day stay.

It only takes 1.5 hours to reach DeAnza from where I was parked at the county park in San Diego so I dawdled there until the 11 am checkout time, then took the freeways east. I did have to stop at a view area to top off my surge tank. After a long uphill pull, my warning light about low coolant came on. I’d installed the new surge tank just a couple months before so I wasn’t that surprised since I wasn’t sure I’d put enough juice in. Topped it off though, and the light went off. I’d just done this road a week before so didn’t take many pictures. Some of the hills were a long climb.

That stop at the view point to top off the radiator and to make a lunch sandwich put me at DeAnzi Springs at around 1 pm. Just after leaving the freeway, there’s a couple of fuel stations with convenience stores that are pretty handy to the RV park. But the approach road to the park is dirt. Not very wide in several places either. There’s dirt berms along the sides of the road in places, and lots of fine dust. I went very slowly trying to dodge the worst of it, but still got a lot on the back of my RV and on the car. After the 1.5 miles of dirt road at 5 mph, it changes to very old blacktop. Broken and potholed enough that it’s even slower going the last 0.6 mile or so to get to this unmanned kiosk. What I missed as I drove up to this building was the small sign a couple car lengths further back from my drivers window. The sign had you press the buzzer and the office will buzz you in. Took me a while to figure that out since I’d been gawking at what I could see of the RV the park over on my right and missed the little sign, but eventually the gate was opened when I figured it out.

The place didn’t look like much as I was waiting for the gate to open. I was beginning to wonder what I let myself in for. After the gate opened, followed the signs up to a surprisingly large office building. And what a surprise. This is a pretty nice place. I wander around the office building after being assigned a space and it’s pretty cool. Nice large working cafe, large bar with some people there, card room, lending library, and a very pretty bartender. Also a large dance floor, bandstand, tables & chairs, the whole nine yards. Lots of picture windows to enjoy the outside without being there. Just outside was a huge patio next to a large pool and even more tables and chairs. Over there a bit were a couple tennis courts. Well, now, this is interesting. Had no idea driving in that everything would be so fancy. It really does look like a resort here inside the building. Not that old either. And the place is sparkling clean. Went back out front and drove my RV to space Blue #8. Did not like that space. Couldn’t get level, no shade either. So walked up to the other spaces that had trees directly across from the building, found an empty one I liked better, than back to the office and asked them to switch me to space Blue #30. And after a quick check on the computer, they allowed the move.

Got all hooked up to 50 amp, water, and sewer, disconnected the car, and off I went to find the Jacumba Hot Springs I’d read about. Just a couple miles from DeAnza. And after a short trip, there’s Jacumba in those trees.    I did find the springs, which are enclosed in a run down older building that’s really the worse for wear. At least I think I saw the buildings. I wasn’t all that interested in touring the springs via that building after seeing the outside. I’m not much of a hot springs guy anyway so don’t take my word for it. If you’re passing this way, by all means, stop in and see how they are. There’s 205 reviews on line and they add up to 4.5 stars, so the place is highly rated. I could have been looking at the wrong building. Here’s a link to an aerial view that shows more than I remember, so I could have been mistaken about which buildings comprise the Hot Springs.

Jacumba is a tiny town, the hot springs are it’s claim to fame. I did stop into their grocery store and it’s looking like it’s on it’s last legs. It might be because the town is so close to the border. Here’s the existing border fence just across the road from Jacumba. It’s really kind of silly because it’s not very tall, and when it gets to the end, it just stops. So someone wanting to enter the US by this route just has to walk around the fence, stick out their thumb on the nearby freeway, and boom, they’re in El Centro where they’ll get hired immediately. 

Pretty neat. And a waste of taxpayer dollars. It’s only 10 feet tall and no razor wire on top. Not enough to stop anyone determined to cross the border. I thought that it was just a ‘gesture’ never intended to stop any guest workers so needed by US farmers. It’s a silly waste of money.

And here I am on  that dirt road back to DeAnza Springs. It’s fairly wide here. Some sections are rather tight for say two RV’s passing opposite directions. But I doubt that happens often. It did not happen the day I arrived, but did happen the day I left. We made it past each other fine though. Just I didn’t like having to get as close to the dust berm I had to when I pulled to the right as far as I could go. The other guy had to too. In his 5-wheel. Cars don’t have a problem.That’s Mexico over there past those power towers. Those are the power lines that actually head into Mexico and they buy power from us. One of the narrow sections into the RV park. With scratchy trees and weeds just waiting to jump out and scratch your RVs paint. They should work on this road. Get it fully paved and widened. Even if they don’t though, it’s worth chancing the short drive to visit the place. And soon I was back at DeAnza Springs. I’d wanted to tour Jacumba because I’d read a lot about that little town and thought it might be interesting. It’s not really. I suppose it’s fine if all you want to do is enjoy the hot springs, I was looking for more interesting history. A better stocked store, an open museum, maybe a nice rustic bar to visit. Well, it was a fun way to kill 2 hours though.OK, here’s the entrance to DeAnza Springs again. This time I didn’t miss the signs. I have the excuse that in my RV, sitting so high, and looking the other direction, I can be forgiven for missing this sign. It’s much more obvious when you’re in your car. The office had given me the code so I had no trouble with the gate. OK, here’s the park proper. Those are the short term RV spaces, the big office/cafe/bar building is just to the left. I had been given a map of the place and it’s so big, I drove around instead of trying to see it all on foot. Wanted to get an overall idea of the park. Nice compact gravel roads most of the park, and some areas where they’ve used that crumbled up recycled blacktop stuff. It works nice. No dust to speak of while touring the park. Big pile of rocks out back. See the occasional building along with RVs scattered here and there? Those are spaces and homes for lease or sale. If you live the nudist lifestyle, you can buy a place here, and come over from San Diego or El Centro to enjoy your bad naked self.    It was a bit tight trying to park and extend my slide in a place I’d be able to take advantage of  the best shade from the surrounding trees. Eventually, I was in the perfect position. You can see the power tower is in fine shape. It was late afternoon and no one was around so I took the opportunity to spray all the dust off the back of my RV, from off the tires and chrome rims, and off the entire car. Did my best to use as little water as possible, but if their road into the park had been graveled, I wouldn’t have needed to use water.

And peeking around the front of my RV towards the bar building. Some home owners here have really dug in judging by the paraphernalia they accumulated on their properties. From the looks of the properties, 25% or more of the guest here are permanent. Way off in the distance you can see the freeway scar on the mountainside. Not that big scar, but the fine scar below it. The spaces do seem a bit raw without grass, but the patio is nice. And check out the shade I ended up with. Didn’t need to extend my awning. Wifi was great too.  And…it was getting close to 4:30 pm so wandered over there to have me an adult beverage.So that’s a first look at the DeAnza Springs Resort. A clothing optional park just 1.5 hours from San Diego, and 50 minutes from El Centro, CA. DeAnza is at 2600 feet so the weather is better than El Centro in that it’s cooler, it covers 500 acres so there’s much to explore, and it’s surprisingly remote, so very quiet.

And here’s where we’ll stop this time. I’ll be back in a couple days with another report from DeAnza springs. Had a week there and really enjoyed myself. Hope to see you back for the next installment.