Salton Sea

The Salton Sea. WOW . It was a huge lake that covered the whole valley. As it shrank the people (Indians) would move down out of the mountains and set us fishing camps. It is CA's largest lake35 miles long, 15 miles wide and 227 feet below sea level. It has no natural outlet, whatever flows in, does not flow out. It is the 2nd lowest spot in the USA (Death Valley being #1 at 228 ft). It evaporates 6.5 ' per year and is 25% saltier than ocean water.

This is the first we saw of it, hazy it just kinda flowed into the mountain. This was a popular resort in the 1950's. Frank Sinatra and his friends had there yachts here and use to party. but, by the 60's the water was so salty the celebrities quit coming. It is still good for fishing but most fisherman just catch and release.
It supports 80-90 percent of the North American endangered bird populations, and great for bird watching. They say it is good for boating because of the salt water the boat sets higher in the water and can go faster. We did not see one boat out there and find it hard to believe that it could support boats. It was just odd to see this large lake in the desert.
We came upon a sign that pointed us to the Fountain of Youth. Had to go you know. Construction workers found these hot springs when they were laying the roads. This is at a RV Resort. It is 131 degrees fahrenheit pumps 600 gallons per minute and is 350' below the ground. They use this spring water to warm all there showers etc. and have a hot springs tub for healing waters some think.
This is a Mud Pot. We had a hard time finding it and when we did it was so stinky I took a picture and we left. It is not doing any thing, but, if it was carbon dioxide gas rises from below the water table and then vents out in holes it forms. These tend to occur along a earthquake fault. Maybe that is why we left in a hurry.

This was an interesting place to see and talk to people who live there. Now on to Mecca.

Mecca and the fruit orchards around

Gas prices in CA the first of March 2012. We will be going to San Diego March 12th so I will take another picture. Phil ran into a guy on a motor cycle that came upon a station selling fuel for $4.99. When he told the attendant that that was a little high, the attendant said that there was a station 50 miles in either direction start walking.
Mecca, CA Phil said he didn't want to offend any one but he felt like an infidel here. This wasn't much of a community but it is the largest producer of dates.
Speaking of dates. This is a date orchard.
This is an orange orchard.
This is a grape orchard.
This is a lemon orchard.
This is a ?plant farm. The amazing thing was these orchards were all on the same highway in a short span.
This is a Tee Pee that some of the Indians in this area would have built to live in.

This is the end of our travel on 2-29-12 on our way to San Diego, which we never made it to San Diego on this day, but that was OK. Saw a lot of wonderful sites, unusual sites, sad sites, and stinky sites.

Part 1 of 5 Joshua Tree Natl Park 2-29-12

This morning we left Quartzsite for a short trip to see CA. Heading to San Diego. First stop is General George S Patton, Jr Museum in the desert. It was a small museum but Phil was interested in the General.
This was the Desert Training Center for CA and AZ Maneuver arena. It was established by Patton to train American combat troops for battle in North Africa during WWII. Camp opened in 1942 and covered 18,000 sq miles. Being the largest military training ground to ever exist. They say you can still see tank tracks in the desert.

Had a lot of tanks from different wars.
After leaving the museum we continued on and started seeing the mountains of CA. The ones in the far distant had snow on them. YEA Phil was real excited. This is Mt. San Gorgenio 11485'.
Then this sign jumped out at us. We are not ones to by pass a National Park especially one of Joshua Trees. It was pretty much like the desert we have been living in the last few months and we were wondering when the Joshua trees would start (we really like the look of the Joshua tree.) These parks are free when you are 65 (another benefit).
But like I said looks pretty much like a desert. This is the Colorado Desert. And we just kept climbing.
Still more desert. Look at how smooth the mountains are.

Hope you will be able to follow us on this outing, it is really hard to blog backwards but I don't know how else to do this.

By the way we never made it to San Diego, we spent the night in Palm Springs, CA which was OK. It is a town full of lights and movie star named streets with car dealer ships in the middle of a strip mall looking like a fancy shop.

Please enjoy and read on.

Part 2 of 5 Joshua Tree Natl Park 2-29-12

You walked up to this view site and there is a big red WARNING sign. It says to stay on the trail that this cactus is dangerous. We went walking on the trail a ways and saw the pretty soft fluffy looking cactus with little yellow flowers.
Looks pretty and soft doesn't it. This couldn't be the cactus they were warning us about. Well we stayed on the trail anyways. Then we walked back to the truck and saw 3 ladies across the road walking in the desert.
The one in purple had her pant leg up and was pulling out stickers from the cactus. The lady in the fall right in the red jacket was busy working on the sleeve of her jacket. It was so funny (mainly cause it wasn't me). Hope they got a good picture.
Look closely up the hill and you can see a mine opening. In the 30's they mined for Gold, 40's mined for Lead and in the 50's mined for Copper.
Phil and I were discussing how smooth the mountains were looking in the Colorado Desert. Then up and over the next hill we started seeing rocks well maybe I should call them boulders.

And then we see the sign that said we were now in the Mojave Desert. Now we were seeing huge boulders and the cactus and other vegetation was different.

Please continue on to the Mojave Desert pictures.

Part 3 of 5 Joshua Tree Natl Park 2-29-12

We took an off road at a view site. We saw the most awesome rocks. I made Phil climb up into this hole in the rock, the going up wasn't to bad but coming down I thought I was going to have to bandage his knees. You can't imagine the hughness, is that a word, of these rocks forming this mountain.
Just more of those rocks that formed the mountain. Looks like pebbles or river rocks that could be used for landscaping your yard.
There Phil is again just to show you the "rocks"
WHOOPS. I did go on this excursion after all.
The top of this rock just kinda melted over the other ones.
See how it is flowing over the others.
This is "skull rock". that is actually the parks name for it. Coming from the other side it had a mouth too but couldn't get a picture of it unless you did some climbing.

Please continue on to Part 4

Part 4 of 5 Joshua Tree Narl Park 2-29-12

We are in the Mojave Desert now where we have seen the desert change. This is one of the first Joshua Trees we saw, the others were small because of the changing deserts. Some say when the Mormon's were traveling they named this tree after Joshua in the bible because with the arms were out stretched in supplication, guiding them westward.
The Joshua Tree is part of the Yucca Plant family. When young it will grow several inches the first 5 years and then it will average 1/2 inch per year. They are fibirous and have no growth rings so they can't really tell how old they are. This is one that a arm has fallen off recently. It was big.
This is a real tall one with few arms. This tree has never bloomed which is why it is branchless. The Indians used different parts of the tree. The tough leaves for making baskets and sandals, they roasted the flower buds and seeds.
Here you can see a forest of Joshua Trees. Both sides of the road were covered with them. I liked to see them and thought they looked neat. Some people thought they looked grotesque. Some said they were twisted, spiky trees straight out of a Dr. Seuss book. Yes they could be.
I made Phil climb over the guard rail to stand in this snow. Not much of it around but it was some snow. The mountains further into CA that we could see had snow on them. But we were still in shorts while others were in coats. ((we were chilly).
This is a Joshua Tree flower bulb. It has to bloom in order for the tree to have arms. It requires a yucca moth for pollination. Actually the yucca moth and the bulb need each other to survive. Won't go into detail there.
Around this rock some where is the place that Gram Parsons's body was set on fire as he wished. Gram was staying in the town of Joshua Tree, CA and told his buddy that he wanted to be cremated in Joshua Tree and his ashes spread. The park took the stone slab away because to many people were tearing it up. He was a singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Was ranked by Rolling Stones as the 87th of 100 greatest artists of all time. He was 26 when he overdosed and his buddy stole his body from the LA airport with a borrowed hearse (try and do that today) took it to the Park poured 5 gallon of gas on the open coffin and threw a match on it. True story.

Phil has talked about this guy for along time and was excited that he got to see the place. Please continue on to the last blog and pictures.

Part 5 of 5 Joshua Tree Natl Park 2-29-12

There were some HUGH rocks in this park. Stacked as if the grandchildren were having a great time seeing who could stack the most and they still stand.
Stacked in different slants. But, oh so exciting to see. I was really in awe.
They did it. One of them got this rock to stay there and not fall.
We sat and watched this climber for probably 10 minutes. He had a hard time going up this crevice he tried several different ways and finally he put his body on the left side and his feet on the right and inched his way up higher.
YEA he made it. Looking down below I'm sure he was yelling down to his partner, on the ground, that it was OK for him to come up now.
You could pitch a tent just about any where. There were a lot of mountain climbers and extreme bicycles there. Of course, the ones we saw were all pretty young.

We had a great time in Joshua Tree National Park for the day. We went from one desert to another which brought
different vegitation and rock formations.