Journal Entries
The Anza-Borrego Desert
Posted Jan 13, 2007
Borrego Springs, California - January 12, 2007
We float over the Anza-Borrego Desert badlands in the Toyota listening to a California English disc jockey…he plays a haunting song by P.J. Harvey…she whispers:
Big fish, little fish
Swimming in the water
Come back here
And bring me my daughter
We’re not in Kansas anymore…
We pull into Borrego Springs and buy Australian Boomey Shiraz wine and a new supply of JB Weld Epoxy.
The local restaurant has a pool table. Three young men are playing eight-ball. They look Mexican…They play the touch screen juke box…Pink Floyd…Santana…Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen,…The Rolling Stones, “I can’t get no satisfaction”
I suddenly realize they are probably more authentic Americans then me, with probably 10 or 20 generations behind them to my three…
Apparently the desert here blooms with spectacular flowers every two or three years in the Spring…right now its barren and dull.
We find a little resort with tennis courts. For $10 we can play all day. Gordon is the proprietor. He says Borrego Springs is as old as Palm Springs, but it never really took off…
I lose again 6-1. 6-2…
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Latest reply: Jan 13, 2007
Dr. Seuss Trees and Poisonous Yellow Smog
Posted Jan 12, 2007
Joshua Tree National Park – January 10, 2007
The Joshua trees could have come from a Dr. Seuss book featuring Horton the Elephant or Yertle the Turtle. You look at them and have to wonder what universe you are in.
We drive from the Salton Sea to the Cottonwood Spring at the south entrance in eastern California. Cottonwood Spring produces about 30 gallons of water an hour. It is the only source of water for many miles and helped support gold-mining operations in the area in the Nineteenth Century.
The southern half of the 825,000 acre Park is in the Sonoran Desert. After about thirty miles of exploring vistas and exhibits the landscape transitions to the Mojave Desert and the Joshua trees.
The Cholla Cactus forest is right where the Sonora desert intersects the Mojave. If you touch one of them slightly you end up with a fingerful of painful prickers. They are said to jump out at you for this reason. They are also known as "teddy-bear" cactus. They grow where there is a seasonally plentiful supply of rainwater, in this case on the edge of a mountain slope, where, I suspect, rain is periodically produced by the adiabatic process. The Joshua trees are in the Mojave section of the Park.
On the way out of the Park, after driving 60 miles, we pass though the small town of Joshua Tree, where a disturbed 66 year old man gunned down an attorney, his wife and a bystander two days ago.
The city of Palm Springs has an incredible uncountable forest of windmills set up to catch the effect of the Ventura winds from LA. The air here at ground level is a thick, poisonous, impenetrable yellow smog from the big city 125 miles away.
Here are a bunch of pictures of dead Kangaroo Rats, Cholla cactus forests, Joshua trees, windmill farms and strange rock formations that resemble skulls.
http://good-times.webshots.com/slideshow/556954446pZBAgb?&track_pagetag=/page/album/goodtimes/roadtrips/&track_action=/Owner/ActionsBox/Slideshow
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Latest reply: Jan 12, 2007
Salton Sea Oddities
Posted Jan 11, 2007
Mecca, California – January 9, 2007
They made a bad movie here in 1957 about a giant radioactive sea cucumber that menaced the world. There was a strange man-sized piece of gelatinous protoplasm floating offshore last night. The little piles of dead fish on the shore appear to have been sucked completely dry through identical sets of mysterious puncture wounds. The front of the RV is covered with thick, whitish slime, apparently some type of marine secretion.
There are ice crystals in the stratosphere this morning, and one of those huge, bright rings around the moon caused by the reflection of moonbeams at a 22 degree angle through the crystals.
East of San Diego, the Salton Sea sits several hundred feet below sea level in a desert valley surrounded by mountains. The “sea” is about 30% saltier than the ocean. It is the largest lake in California.
This was once part of the Sea of Cortez. About 500 years ago it dried up as the weather became more arid and silt from rivers filled in the ocean basin.
In 1905, the Colorado River broke its banks in Yuma, Arizona and filled in the basin forming a 350 square mile lake. After that a series of hydro-electric dams were built to tame the river. The lake evaporates about six feet a year, but rivers flowing in from Mexico and agricultural run-off keep the lake depth fairly stable.
The lake gets saltier every year, but it has only 10% of the salt of the Great Salt Lake, so it still supports a large fish population and millions of aquatic birds.
The surrounding area is part desert, but much of it is used for agricultural purposes. We see huge fields of lettuce, grapes, date palms and orange trees.
The California Parks Department vehemently denies that the Salton Sea in unhealthy in any way, except for too much salt. Untreated industrial waste and raw sewage flow into the lake from Mexico.
The Parks Department denies that Selenium levels are excessive, although the fish tissue concentration of selenium "has resulted in a health advisory warning to the public". They also deny that the untreated sewage flowing over the international border is harmful, "since most of the E Coli is no longer viable by the time it empties into the Salton Sea"
Notwithstanding, I have pictures of thousands of small, rotted, dead fish on the beach. It does look like the Red Tide on Florida beaches. The beach is made up of thick deposits of what looks like salt water barnacles.
We decide to camp here a few days an explore some of the nearby National and State Parks.
Here are a few pictures of the desert and lake creatures.
http://good-times.webshots.com/slideshow/556958285rEcrgq?&track_pagetag=/page/album/goodtimes/roadtrips/&track_action=/Owner/ActionsBox/Slideshow
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Latest reply: Jan 11, 2007
The Desert of Altars
Posted Jan 9, 2007
Pinacate Desert, Mexico – January 8, 2007
The desert is named after the Pinacate beetle, known for standing on its head and emitting foul odors.
As we leave the sandy wind-blown town on Puerto Penasco on the Sea of Cortez in the morning, we see billowing black smoke from a tire fire and packs of wild dogs in the street.
There is a run of 60 miles north though the desert to the Mexican town of Sonotya on the border below the Organ Pipe National Monument. The desert gets so little rain that it can’t support cactus…only sand dunes and volcanic cinder mountains. This area is so like the moon that the Apollo astronauts trained here…some think the moon landings were filmed here.
We pull over for breakfast at a small altar. There is a large pile of apparent trash near the altar. I see inside the altar a statue of Jesus and several candles burning inside glasses in the windy morning. The wind whistles, obscuring the morning sun in a sandstorm.
I look closely at the trash pile and see that there are thousands of candle glass containers with pictures of Jesus…spent candle glasses dumped in the desert to make room for new candle glasses…
There are dozens of small roadside altars on the road to Sonotya…but no people…it’s too dry with less than five inches of annual rainfall….white crosses are erected on the volcanic cinder peaks…
This desert has been described as, "the bleakest, flattest, hottest, grittiest, grimmest, dreariest, most useless desert of them all." I find an unusual beauty and strangeness to the sand beach and cinders that stretch hundreds of miles in all directions from the Sea of Cortez.
The last 20 miles before the border we begin to see cactus again. I Google to find examples of the cactus we see flying past.
The customs and border patrol agents treat us much better this time. We came though in ’72 with a VW bug decorated with peace symbols and they dismantled the car before passing us though.
Here are some pictures of cactus…We are familiar now with Organ Pipe and Saguaro, but there are others… http://go.okstate.edu/~svonbro/desertecology/cactgall.htm#top
And some more pictures of the altars…
http://good-times.webshots.com/slideshow/556913089xVsctb?&track_pagetag=/page/album/goodtimes/roadtrips/&track_action=/Owner/ActionsBox/Slideshow
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Latest reply: Jan 9, 2007
The Sea of Cortez
Posted Jan 5, 2007
Puerto Penasco, Mexico – January 5, 2006
We spent a couple of days in the desert in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Organ Pipe cactus, unlike Saguaro, is rare in the U.S. They’re cold sensitive and grow here only on the Mexican border on the south slope of the mountains. These cacti, like Saguaro, have hard woody skeletons, like whale penis bones, which remain behind after they die of old age. Their waxy surfaces hold in water during the day. At night they open their pores to breath and bloom. Long-nose bats dart from flower to flower spreading pollen.
Most of the scenic roads close to the border have been closed in the monument. Drug smugglers and “coyotes”, who smuggle people, use Organ Pipe extensively on runs North, creating new roads and litter. A few park rangers and border patrol agents have been killed here in skirmishes so they try to keep the tourists and the smugglers separated in a balancing act. The park rangers are more offended by litter than by smuggling.
We cross the border and drive 60 miles though the sandy desert to the northern tip of the Sea of Cortez at Puerto Penasco. There are $2 margaritas at the resort next door during Happy Hour. We drink some and dance a little.
The sea is tranquil and very blue in the hot Mexican sun. I expect a big tide since the sea is shaped like the Bay of Fundy in Maine and like Cook’s Inlet in Alaska. At low tide a big expanse of white sand appears. John from Montreal catches me trying to photograph a “green flash” at sunset and stays to help and offer advice. He’s an old diver too with a French accent. He likes to spearfish. He thinks the water is too cold at 60 F.
We have some Coronas with lime slices placed in the bottleneck at a restaurant built on pilings in the Old Port. Corona is pronounced properly with a rolled “R”. The beaches here are lined with new million dollar condos built for American boomers from California.
Black dogs run in packs on the beach in the morning. They have adapted to life here. They forage on the beach for food washed in by the tide. I see a few going though garbage cans that they can knock over. As the sunlight comes the dogs change color from black to brown and white.
The whales from Alaska winter here. At dawn the reflections on the wet sand beach are golden.
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Latest reply: Jan 5, 2007
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