Naval Aviation Facility, El Centro, CA

Palm Oasis RV Park & Resort. That’s its name and it’s out in the desert, away from just about everything. It has a community atmosphere because in the winter months the RV residents out number the base residents.

 

It’s not a place we ever planned to visiting. I had been there a couple of times when on active duty. Back then it was known as the National Parachute Test Range (NPTR) and mostly Navy attack squadrons from other bases around the country came there to practice bombing in the nearby bomb ranges. Later on it became a NAF when the Blue Angle flight demonstration squadron made it their winter home.

We stayed there for a couple of months because of the excessive rain fall and mud sliding in areas in southern CA we had planned on spending our winter months. It was also raining in the deserts near El Centro and a lot of people were leaving because the dune buggy riders had no place to ride and went elsewhere. We were very surprised when we called from San Diego and were told there were a couple of sites available for us in the overflow area. That particular area had full hook-up service with 30 amps and another 15 amp plug-in for extension cords.

Our site was located in an old paved parking lot and backed-up to a ball field. Across the street was the bowling alley, chow hall and a golf driving range. We could eat in the chow hall without reservations except on weekends and holidays. We got our mail from a general delivery box at a US post office about three miles outside the main gate.

 

It you cant find something to do on base there isn’t much else close by. We did find a nice 9 hold golf course about 10 miles away. After we had been there for about a week the Blue Angles showed-up and there were no more quiet days except on Sundays. We had dish TV and finding a nice clear signal was no problem at all.

The rain caught up with us and it rained so long and hard they had to rent huge trucks with vacuum hoses to get the water out of the parking lots around base. We drove over to Yuma and found people were also leaving there for other areas and we found a couple of side by side sites to spend another couple of months in.

Here are some pictures of our sites, the Blue’s flight line and from around base.