This morning we woke up around 6ish and readied ourselves for the last California goodbyes.

Steve & Dad wanted to drive with us out to Jacumba (which is a little over an hour east of San Diego) and spend a little time at a place called Desert View Tower. It was there that we said our goodbyes. As we drove down the road towards the hiway they peeled off one way and we peeled off the other. It was a sad, sad moment for me - I made sure my tear ducts were working for a few minutes until I was distracted by Abby's urgent need to understand how her Dora stencil worked....then, it was back to business. We started the long drive to our final destination: Cottonwood, Az. (about 90 miles or so north of Phoenix). When all was said and done, we spent about 12 hours on the road - that included our Dessert Tower trip as well as lunch, dinner and gas pit stops. By the way - gas is $3.11 around these parts.

We are all cozied into our hotel for the night - looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and taking in some of the local sights here. I did want to mention a little more about the Desert View Tower. This place is a tucked away little gem - my brother turned us on to it and had the idea to drive out w/ Dad to check it out. Here is an excerpt from roadsideamerica, which I thought was a good summary:

"[Bert] Vaughn, who owned the town of Jacumba, built the stone lookout between 1922-28. Its 70-foot tower was dedicated in memory of the area's rough pre-highway days, when the journey between Yuma and the Pacific Ocean took a month across blasted moonlike terrain."

In addition to the tower, there is a very cool boulder park...roadsideamerica writes about that as well:

"The real attraction at the Desert View Tower is Boulder Park, a jumble of rocks weathered by wind into caves and craggy walkways. Kids adore this area, and scramble with sugared-beverage abandon up the switchback path over friendly-looking precipices and outcroppings.

The Depression Era carvings strung along the path are a bonus, hand-carved animals, faces, and folk creatures inspired by the natural shapes in the boulders. Folk artist and out-of-work engineer W.T. Ratcliffe sculpted the quartz granite boulders without any particular theme in mind; but he likely knew kids would love the rocky maze. The carvings and tower are registered as an official California Historical Landmark (#939)."

The place was very, very cool...the views were amazing, the man that was working there (and his 4 friendly dogs) were just part of the scene. The boulders were amazing.


For more pictures of our time at Desert Tower - please click here and enjoy! Stay tuned as Club Amaro experiences Arizona.