Tecopa Hot Springs, CA (03-11-12)

I have a feeling that when we move  to Death Valley National Park tomorrow,  we may have cell phone  reception, but we probably won’t have internet for a few days, so  I figured I’d get one more post done.
 
We arrived here in Tecopa Hot Springs early enough in the day so that we could go exploring a little bit.  We found the China Ranch Date Farm. This place is an oasis in the middle of  a desert.  Literally. The Old Spanish Trail, a “highway” of sorts back in the mid 1800s when trails were traveled on horseback, runs through the property.  Back then it was owned by a Chinese man, who grew crops and raised animals to feed the men in the mining camps. That’s how it got it’s name, although obviously he is long gone.  The property is now owned by a family that grows dates of all kinds. 

They sell date bread, date butter, and date just about everything else you can think of, including……date ice cream. It was actually delicious!  Of course, I never met an ice cream I didn’t like, but still….

The reason that we stopped here was not for the dates or the  hot springs,  although we have also been enjoying the hot springs, which, at this RV park, are small, private pools in small rooms.   We stopped because we wanted  to  hike along  the Amargosa River.

The Amargosa is a rare desert river.  Although it’s 185 miles long, very little of it flows above the ground, and this area is one of the two spots where it does.  We thought our hike was going to be about 6 miles, but it ended up being over 9 miles.  Luckily for us, it was a partly cloudy day because when the sun was out, we were certainly reminded of the fact that we are in a desert.  It was really hot. It was a nice hike, with lots of great scenery, but we would have maybe turned around after a while if we hadn’t been trying to get to the waterfall. I’m not sure I really believed there would be an actual waterfall, but sure as heck, there was:
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So, our stay here has been a short one, but we’ve managed to cram a lot of activities into one and a half days. One weird thing about this area- the high mineral content in the water, which is what makes it therapeutic, also makes it pretty undrinkable. Most of the RV parks in this town advertise that you must bring your own drinking water.  Ours didn’t, so we didn’t, so we’ve been drinking it, and even with 3 filters, we can taste the minerals.  Oh well, it won’t hurt us, it just doesn’t taste good.  Most of the locals buy their water or have a reverse osmosis set up. Apparently they’ve been told there’s no way to make the water much better than it is.  Strange.