Bashford’s Hot Mineral Spa & RV Park
10590 Hot Mineral Spa Rd.
Niland, CA 92257
760-354-1315 – $37.50 for one night, site 14 pull-thru
On Monday, we planned to leave Yuma and head up to the Salton Sea where it was supposed to be a bit cooler. It was an easy drive that took about 2 1/2 hours. The most interesting parts were passing the Mexican border areas – Los Algodones and Calexico. There were some signs along the highway with warnings that basically meant to watch for illegals, and that the border patrol was watching the area. Even at the California agricultural inspection station, there were plenty of cop cars there, the workers all were wearing cammo, and they even had a sniffer German Shepherd. Driving that long stretch of Interstate 8 that parallels the border just brings to mind how utterly stupid Trump’s idea of building a border wall is. That border along there is LOOONNNGGG! It would take an ENORMOUS amount of materials to build a walll that long. And who would he get to build that big thing? Mexicans? And sheesh! That portion of the border is just a small portion of the entire border! And it’s flat there. How much more difficult to build a border wall in the mountainous areas?? That man is either really, really stupid, or he’s just pandering to his base when he keeps calling for that wall. How well did the wall work for Hadrian? How well did the Great Wall of China work? Sigh. What have we come to as a nation? Oh well. I digress. Too much caffeine this morning!
Another interesting thing about the drive was passing the Imperial Dunes Recreation Area. As you head west, you see in the distance what appears to be a mountain range, but is light tan in color. As you get closer you realize these are ENOURMOUS sand dunes running south to north as far as you can see! They make the Stovepipe Wells Dunes in Death Valley look like nothing! Interestingly, the west side of the dunes were not dune-like, but just desert with scattered low scrub. I never saw an exit from the I-8 for the Dunes, but they would be an interesting place to visit.
Because it was still so hot (upper 90s), we decided to go to Bashford’s Hot Mineral Spa and RV Park before boondocking at Salton Sea (so that we could run the AC). Bashford’s is maybe 10 miles south of the camping area at Salton, but up in the foothills of the Chocolate Mountains, and about 5 miles up the road. We visited the other RV park there last year, and Bashford’s is pretty similar, just a little cheaper. The had 6 or 8 hot mineral tubs with warm mineral water constantly flowing into them. That water was only bathtub-warm, and I was disappointed in that soak. I only found out later that there were hoses there that you could put into the tub to add the really hot water to get it up to whatever temperature you want. After the mineral soak, we used the large regular hot tub and nice-sized warm-water pool for a while. The temperature really cooled off overnight and in the morning we decided to go ahead on to Salton rather than stay another day at Bashford’s, although I would have loved another soak!