That morning we realized that again we had nearly forgotten to take a photo of ourselves and, needing one at a golf course, quickly found a beautiful one near our hotel. We arrived, took a quick photo, and became increasingly aware of the dark, ominous clouds billowing over the mountains. We overheard that Palm Springs was getting pummeled by rain and hightailed it out of there towards our next destination, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, near Borrego Springs.
With a little digging before our trip began, I learned that the actual location seen in the Soarin’ ride video can be seen from a spot called Font’s Point, which is 4 miles off the freeway by means of a “wash;” the flat, sandy sections of desert especially prone to flash flooding. We found the sign marking the start of the “road” and began driving along – in my compact, front wheel drive, low clearance Honda Civic, with storm clouds looming above us…. Do you see where this is going? Because we did not.
That’s right, we got stuck. Now, in our defense, we did follow the instructions from my research: keep to the harder packed sand and maintain a constant speed, not too slow, and not too fast. The website even stated that most two wheel drive sedans were fine to take the journey. Let me tell you right now that that is definitely not true. Unfortunately, we had just decided it looked too soft ahead and we needed to turn around when we suddenly stopped moving. The car had slipped into soft sand and we were trapped. Now starting to panic that we were going to be washed away by a flash flood we threw ourselves onto our hands and knees and started to dig. And dig, and dig, and dig. We shoved scrub and rocks under the tires and tried time after time to back out of the soft sand. Just one foot and we would be back on the harder pack.
Plenty of scrapes, yelps, and not-so-nice words later we had no choice but to start the hike back towards the freeway. We had no idea how far we had come. Thankfully, both of us have been walking more since February when Pacific Northwest Mouse Meet host Don Morin created a Disney Fan walking group, and we didn’t feel like we were going to fall over in the middle of the desert (important note: we did have supplies for being in the desert, such as lots of water, food, and umbrellas for shade). Eventually we reached the road, which was probably about a mile and a half away, and made a beeline directly for the callbox positioned at the foot of the wash, giving us the impression that we were not the first ones to need it (there was no cell service at all). As Mom talked on the box I flagged down the next pickup truck I saw coming down the road. I explained to the driver what had happened while Mom talked to our roadside assistance. We told him we would wait for roadside assistance and he could get going, but he wouldn’t leave us (turns out we didn’t finish the report process and a tow truck was never sent. Thank goodness for kind people!). He had a shovel in the back of the truck and wanted to give it a try, so we all piled into his front seat and made our way back to the car.
Long story short, an hour and a broken extension cord later, the car had not budged (towing equipment an extension cord does not make). Back in the truck we go and travel to the nearest garage – where, of course, both of their trucks were out of service. By this point we are sure we have stepped directly into a bad movie. Our savior, determined to beat the challenge set before him, encouraged us to purchase a tow rope from a nearby hardware store and give it one last go. We drove back to our car one last time (actually somewhat shocked it hasn’t been caught in a flood given our luck at this point) and hook the rope to either car. I set the car in neutral, jump out, and 1, 2, 3…
It popped right out. Nearly ready to throw our arms around our truck driver and profess our love, instead we desperately tried to convince him to please take money for gas, the broken extension cord, and a round of beer to tell our story over. Thankfully, he took a paltry $20 with a laugh and agreed. A little nervous that we were not quite out of the woods yet, as we had to drive back to the highway, we hurried as fast as we could back the way we had come, finally breathing a sigh of relief when we made it out. The moral of the story is: never go anywhere without a tow rope and a good Samaritan, preferably named Kyle.
WARNING: DO NOT DRIVE DOWN FONT’S POINT WASH IN ANZA-BORREGO STATE PARK WITHOUT THE PROPER OFF ROAD VEHICLE. It isn’t worth the risk.
Oh, but our adventures for the day were far from over. After a relaxing brunch with a friend who coincidentally lives in Borrego Springs to recharge our batteries, we made our way to San Diego and our hotel for the night. Our first thought when we enter our room: it is hot. And I mean, ridiculously hot. The air conditioner was working full blast but the sun was so hot it couldn’t keep up. After three hours and no change, we tried to change rooms, but couldn’t stand it and ended up needing to change hotels, in our pajamas, at 8:00 at night. “Yes, of course our air conditioner works,” the manager assures us – merely adding fodder to our fire when the air conditioner in this third room breaks at two am. Waking up to a strange man at your window, cursing and dropping large metal things on the ground, is a frightening experience. Turns out it was the maintenance man trying to install a window air conditioner (don’t worry, Mom had called for him. I was just sleeping) – but that didn’t work either. So we ended up having to move, again, to our fourth hotel room in one night.
Just keep that in mind, because that was not the end of our air conditioner troubles.
