I spend another two weeks boondocking at the Holtville Hot Spring. My last visit here?

I’m writing this from my very comfortable campsite at the Holtville Hot Spring, a BLM managed long-term visitor area. This is probably my seventh or eighth visit and I’m planning on staying for about two weeks. That’s why I took the effort to find a campsite that clicked all my boxes — privacy, quiet, space for my pups to run off leash, close (but not too close) to the hot spring tubs — and position my equipment in a way that makes everything easy to access. This is also the third time on this winter trip that I’ve taken the camper off the truck, giving me a little bit more flexibility when it comes to running errands in town.

My campsite, which has two driveways, is tucked in among bare salt cedar trees just off the campground’s main road.

I’m traveling this year with my Lance slide-in truck camper and a small cargo trailer that houses my mobile jewelry studio. Due to crazy fluctuations in the price of silver, which is the main metal I use in jewelry making, I’m not very interested in working in my studio. Not yet, anyway. I’ll probably cover the consequences of silver’s price increases in another blog post.

I flew my drone not long after arriving and setting up. I’m trying to get more practice with my drone — a DJI Mini 4 Pro — so I can take advantage of its incredible feature set, which should make drone videography easy. Although this is a great place to fly, the scenery is not very inspiring. I’ll probably play around with the following features this weekend.

Here’s a look at the bigger picture of the area. A canal separates the BLM-managed desert from the start of a huge agricultural area. There are lots of empty campsites this year.

I made two trips into El Centro to pick up an Amazon package; the package wasn’t there the first day so I had to go back the next. I did some grocery shopping, filled one of my two propane tanks, mailed some earrings to one of my Gallery clients, had an excellent Chinese food lunch, and did a few other chores. On my return the next day, I buzzed right to my destination (a UPS Store), got my package, and came back all before 9 AM. El Centro is a 30-minute drive each way on I-8. I’ll likely run out there again on Tuesday morning, which is when they drain and clean the hot spring tubs.

Other than that, I’ve been very lazy. I make one or two visits to the hot spring tubs each day, encountering various people who are also camped here. A lot of those people are full-time RVers and many of them spend up to seven months here. The campground is remarkably empty this year and I realized that it’s because the Canadians haven’t come down. The weekend will likely bring day-trippers. Sunday is usually the worst, with four-wheelers on their way home from the Glammis dunes east of here stopping in with their kids, who really ruin the calmness of the place. I take my ebike from my campsite to the tubs — it’s a 0.6 mile ride each way.

The hot spring tubs are right at the I-8 freeway, although the exit to get here is about a mile down the road. It’s amazing how well I can tune out the sound of the vehicles. We’re only 6 miles from the Mexican border here, so those mountains in the photo are in Mexico.

I bought a pool thermometer at Walmart the other day and have read temperatures ranging from around 100°F to 108°F, depending on the tub. I like it around 102° to 104°F. I’ve already broken the thermometer, so I’ll buy another (and be more careful with it when I go into town on Tuesday, if I don’t go sooner.

I’m a bit sad about this year’s visit because I really think it’ll be my last. Once again, I’m finding myself in a seasonal rut and I need to shake out of it. That means doing new things in the winter. I’ve already decided that art shows in Arizona are a waste of time and money for me; much of my work is Navajo inspired and does well in Washington state, but in Arizona, I’m competing with Navajos and, simply said, they do better work than I can. But again, I’ll address my evolving jewelry making business in another post or maybe a video.

Last night I got a sudden urge to just break camp and go home in the morning. I can be home from here in two or three days, depending on the hurry I’m in. But this morning, when I woke up and looked forward to a hike along the canal with my pups, followed by a soak in a hot spring tub, I decided that another 10 days wouldn’t kill me. It’ll be around 80°F every day this week. And sunny. The nighttime lows here are about equal to the daytime highs at home. I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

If you want more info about the hot spring, check out the video I did back in 2022. Yeah, I’m reading a script and I look like shit because I was still in the middle of my long hair phase — seriously, what was I thinking? — but there’s some good footage and a description of the place. I like it here.