Grapevine Canyon

As Larry and I drove west up into the mountains, the temperature dropped into the nineties. We leveled out in Ranchita, a wide plateau scattered with small houses with trucks parked in the dusty yards.

We soon turned off onto the sandy Grapevine Canyon Road. Larry said, “so, Capper, this is the old way down to Borrego, the way the Indians used and later the ranchers. And now it’s the proposed route for a massive powerline to San Diego.” Most of the locals oppose the powerline, which will cross Anza-Borrego State Park, but Larry says it’s probably inevitable.

The newer road to Borrego Springs, which we had just used, climbs right up the mountains’ eastern face in tight curves, carved and blasted into the steep slope. It took ten years, 1952 to 1962, to complete the road, which provided a much more direct route to Borrego. The old road, though, descends more gradually and sensibly along the bottom of Grapevine Canyon, passing several springs before coming out onto the desert floor at Yaqui Well.

“Did you see that sign?” I asked Larry.

“Oh, yeah,” he said braking, "I wanted to show you that.” He stopped and backed up and we got out. “A bit of backcountry protest art,” Larry said, gesturing at a poster-sized image of Osama bin Laden holding a machine gun and wearing an SDG&E jumpsuit (SDG&E=San Diego Gas and Electric, sponsors of the planned powerline). Handwritten beside the sun-faded image was a short commentary that used the word “liars” repeatedly.

We passed several small ranches, the houses accompanied by eucalyptus trees, a few cows or horses, often a backhoe. We paused at Angelina Spring, where a single large cottonwood stood, a sure sign of water in the desert. In the canyon bottom, desert willow crowded in on the road. As we lost elevation, big catclaw bushes appeared, then tall sprays of ocotillo, finally the dangerously named teddy bear cholla. We had reached the wide mouth of Grapevine Canyon, a delta plain spread out in the shadow of Grapevine Mountain, one of a string of brown peaks running off eastwards.

At Yaqui Well we got out and walked up a bouldery slope, weaving among the cactus. The last of the day’s light was moving rapidly up the opposite ridge, making a stark division on the mountainside between late-day yellow and the brown of dusk. We stood and watched till the sunlight reached the highest peaks, until only a single contrail in the sky above was still lit.

Back at the house Sinda had made dinner for us, pasta and salad, but before we sat down attention turned to Vargas, whose terrarium rests on a counter in the dining room. He was hiding under one of the three rocks. Larry said, “so, Capper, you see one of the great things about having a scorpion is that you never know where it is.” I could imagine that not being such a great thing, but we went ahead and each made a guess about which rock Vargas was under. Then Sinda took the top off and reached in to lift up her rock. Larry stepped back and said “Sinda,” a single word of warning and worry.

She had chosen right--Vargas stood up, curled his tail and sidled halfway up the small depression in the dirt. “Ok, put it back,” Larry said. He doesn’t like to expose Vargas against his will, preferring to wait till the scorpion emerges on his own. Sinda used the edge of the rock to coax Vargas back to the bottom of the depression--Larry made a noise--and then she put the rock back on top of him.

After dinner we watched The Piano Teacher, a disturbing story about a woman who has mother and sexual issues. Back at the trailer I had to watch some Sports Center before I could go to bed.