Borrego Springs, CA

[donv]

I had to attend some meetings in San Diego earlier this week, and we decided to make a weekend of it and went down to Borrego Springs for a few days before hopping over the hill into KSEE.

https://www.airnav.com/airport/L08

Borrego is an interesting place-- I was there about 20 years ago in my Aerostar, and I can tell you that it basically hasn't changed at all. My imagination is that it's much like Palm Springs must have been in the 1950s-- lots and lots of desert, and a few places to stay. Borrego has very limited water supplies and is surrounded by state park, so there isn't much room to develop there.

There is a great hotel there, though-- La Casa Del Zorro. Owned for many years by the Copley family, who owned newspapers, it was actually closed for several years in the early 2010s before reopening. It's very nice if you like to hang out by the pool and relax-- our room had a wood burning fireplace, which they came and lit each night-- you need that in the desert in the winter!

There aren't tons of places to go out and see or be seen in Borrego, but I really like it. I think I'll be back.

Two things to be aware of-- the airport has no Jet-A, so plan for that, and no rental cars. La Casa Del Zorro will come and pick you up at the airport (it's not far-- you can see the airport from the resort!), and they'll also drive you most anywhere you want to go in town, such as it is.

[Bruce Byerly]

I love these trip reports but someone needs to post up some east of the Rockies!

I flew a super nice 690B from Fayetteville, TN to Denver yesterday and then back into the ice machine at Peoria today.  Then I was going to deliver an 840 to it’s buyer in Miami tonight but after I looked at the weather and the fact that there a zero one way rental cars to Naples thank to super bowl, gave up and flew the airlines home. Ugh. That’s all I got   

[SKYFLYER]

Your third pic (road) when opened up looks like a water color picture especially the mountains. Very cool image for sure.

[Steve binnette]

I agree with Bruce the trip reports are great.

A few weeks ago I flew to Corvallis Oregon to drop of my oldest son at school.  Pretty typical trip I do often.

The interesting part was my copilot.  He was an airline buddy of mine that has been medically retired for 20 years.  During his first year with the airline he became diabetic.  For several years he was able to control it with diet and exercise, eventually  that became impossible and he retired medically.

Fortunately he had loss of license insurance.  Some he bought and some the airline provided.

He has stayed out of the cockpit ever since.  Up until our flight to CVO.

The FAA has changed its policy on diabetes and my buddy is looking to get back in the cockpit at the airline.  So I offered to help him knock the rust off.

My instructions were simple do what ever you feel comfortable doing, sit and watch, talk on the radio, fly a little.

On our climb out of CMA I gave him the controls.  It was like he had never left.  He has a great set of hands and controlling the airplane came back  very naturally.

Into CVO we had a little weather, icing and some low visibility.  He seemed to stay up with the airplane.  On departure there is a SID that has you turning and climbing and talking in a very short amount of time.  He got behind there but I don’t like that SID either,  way too busy close to the ground for single pilot ops.

Back into CMA we had a cloud layer at about 1200ft.  Once we broke out and had the runway in sight I asked him if he wanted to try and see how far he could take it in.

He ended up making a beautiful landing. I think he was as surprised as me. I thought he would hand it back prior to flare!

He was so excited about flying it made me realize what we can easily take for granted.  During cruise when we were between light cloud layers with the sun setting he says “ I forgot about this stuff, it’s nice”.

[donv]

You should know some cool places! Where do you take your sales prospects to show them the utility of their own airplane?

I love these trip reports but someone needs to post up some east of the Rockies!

I flew a super nice 690B from Fayetteville, TN to Denver yesterday and then back into the ice machine at Peoria today.  Then I was going to deliver an 840 to it’s buyer in Miami tonight but after I looked at the weather and the fact that there a zero one way rental cars to Naples thank to super bowl, gave up and flew the airlines home. Ugh. That’s all I got 

[Adam Frisch]

That's a cool story Steve.

For how long we'll be able to fly, is a topic on my mind all the time. I'm glad the FAA has made it a little bit easier for diabetics to return to the cockpit. Especially in 2 crew airplanes, I really don't see the need to be so stringent with these things. Do we really need 2x 1st class medicals up front?

[Steve binnette]

I think the tech available to diabetics had a lot to do with it.

He has a sensor that send blood sugar reading to a device every 5 minutes or something like that.  He needs, among other things to demonstrate a stable blood sugar over a 6 month period.

[donv]

Went back to Borrego as soon as California opened up. La Casa del Zorro has these beautiful casitas, each with their own pool, and very nice outdoor dining (and, seeing as it's Borrego, outdoor dining is just fine!).

We flew into Thermal and drove this time, since there are still no rental cars (or Jet-A) in Borrego itself. Took the rental car to Font's Point... a friend of mine who goes there a lot told me to make sure I had 4WD... sure, whatever, it's the desert-- nope! Really needed it! But completely worth it.

[Adam Frisch]

What's that rwy in the background of pic, Don? Doesn't look like Thermal.

[donv]

Are you talking about the first picture? That is the Borrego Springs Airport. Perfectly nice, just no Jet-A or rental cars. When we went in 2019, La Casa Del Zorro came and picked us up. They would probably do that this year, but it is nice to have a car, and my wife had some Covid concerns about riding around in a van with a stranger.

Unfortunate, because you can see the airport from the hotel.