THE Trip, Oddities Near Niland California, Salton Sea Area

Copyright 2011, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

If you have not figured it out yet by the many posts I have made about THE Trip, I rather enjoy finding the oddities.  I enjoy learning about them, and, of course, sharing them.  And, in that vein, I bring you "washes" and "mud pots" of Imperial County, California.

Washes are not at all uncommon in the desert west.  We have seen them in New Mexico, Arizona and California.  They are obvious, many are marked by bridges or dips in the road.  In larger towns you may even see washes that are totally paved in concrete.  You are warned, if there is water covering the road to not cross, you have no idea how much water is down in that dip.  What made the drive along 111 on the western shore of the Salton Sea so remarkable was the number of washes and their "shapes", they were frequently deep and "wiggled" all over the landscape.  They were distinctly "cut" out of the otherwise fairly flat barren land.

Along 111, the west side of the Salton Sea, rain runs down and under
the road, cutting these huge "divits" or washes.
There are so many washes they name and number them.

Same wash as above, just a different angle.
You can see, this one appears to be quite deep, well over 5 feet.

And, this one looks even deeper, maybe 8 to 10 feet deep,
and what is that in the middle of the photo?

Concrete bags?? Sand bags??  Not quite sure,
and have no idea of why.

A few miles north of Niland are mud pots, accessed via the Wister Unit of Imperial Wildlife Area.  Thanks to Google and Wikipedia we find in a few minutes of net surfing,  "This is a  field of small (less than 3 metres or 9.8 ft) mud volcanoes in the Salton Sea geothermal area near the town of Niland, California. Emissions are mostly CO2."   Remember this area is earthquake country, the San Andreas Fault is nearby.   The mud pots are formed in geothermal areas where there is water pushing the ash or mud up to the surface forming mini volcanoes. I have found a number of reports on the Internet where visitors saw these mud pots bubbling and gurgling, calling them surreal, with quirky charm.  No such luck the day we visited.  No matter, we enjoyed the "unusual to us" sight.

There were also some mud volcanoes in the area, but we did not visit, our day had been long, so we headed back to Tana.  In a future post I'll take you to Slab City and Salvation Mountain, where we spent the majority of our day.  Salvation Mountain lies pretty much in Slab City, both are unusual, to say the least.  They left me emotionally exhausted and with LOTS of photos (ya, I know, what's new?).

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THE Trip, La Quinta California to the Salton Sea

Copyright 2011, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

While we were in LaQuinta we made a drive down to the Salton Sea area and quickly decided we would really like to stop there for a few days.  So, we moved Tana a whole 24 miles and managed to snag the last campsite at the Salton Sea State Recreation campground right by the Visitor's Center for the park.  Full hookups, on black top, overlooking the Salton Sea.  The park is 227 feet BELOW sea level.

Salton Sea is about 35 miles long, 15 miles wide.  The California State Park page on the park and the sea is a good place to start learning about this "accidental sea".  They tell us, "One of the world's largest inland seas and lowest spots on earth at -227 below sea level".  Wikipedia also has a very interesting page on the Salton Sea.  Another fine collection of pages on the Salton Sea, as provided by the Salton Sea Authority.  Start on that page, then, click around the links, when done with the links, click on HOME.  I found the web site a bit confusing, some of the photos would not display, but still I found it to be very interesting reading.

I had hoped to walk the shore line and photograph the many types of water fowl that live here during the winter, sadly, there had been a "die-off" of Tilapia, and frankly my dear, the shore line was el stinky!  I did get a few photos of some water fowl, they will appear at Reflection's Flora and Fauna sometime soon.

Here is what the Salton Sea looks like thanks to Google Maps:

Click for larger view of this graphic,
click back button on your browser to return to this post.

We were struck by the texture of the "sea shore".  When we asked at the Visitor's center they told us what we experienced was broken up barnacles.  They are not native to the Salton Sea, it is believed they arrived on the hulls of military equipment such as seaplanes and such at the end of World War II (about 1944).  Broken barnacles make up the majority of the shore line "sand", as you can see:

Man with a handful of beach barnacles sand at Salton Sea.

Our first night had a spectacular sunset:

Looking west, over Salton Sea at sunset.

We stayed at the Salton Sea for 3 nights.  The entire area is very interesting, the "Fountain of Youth" is not far away, as are Salvation Mountain and Slab City (will talk about those in a future blog).  Many of the towns are obviously very poor, we left the area feeling you would have to be extremely tough to live here, a survivor.  It is also hauntingly beautiful as only places of "extremes" can be.

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THE Trip, Moving On, But, Where To??

Copyright 2011, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Tomorrow AM Man and I will take leave of the LaQuinta California area.  He is leaving with much pained screaming and moaning, Man really loves it here.

The general plan is that at this point we will start reading "East" on the highways and biways, whereas we have been reading and heading "West" since we left SE Michigan in mid November.

That said, we are not quite sure where we will land tomorrow night.  It will depend on Mother Nature and somewhat on Tana and her holding tanks.  Jury is still out, but, we may have a slight leak in one of the waste tanks, what they call the gray tank.  Thankfully, it is NOT the, mmmm, black water tank, which holds just what you think it holds.  Hey, it has to go somewhere, eh??? (The gray by the way is from the shower and the bathroom sink.)

So, when we hook up in the AM we will be watching for any leaks.

If it does NOT leak, we are leaning towards stopping around the Salton Sea for a spell, and even those plans are not clear, full hookups??  boondocking??  It will all depend on availability and our moods at the time.

If it does leak, well, stay tuned, we shall let you know what we decide.

If, we stop at the Salton Sea, we may or may not have phone service and/or Internet.  Course, the last time I said that, we had the fastest connection ever, out in the middle of the Quartzsite desert, who knew??  So, maybe the Salton Sea will be good too.

So, as usual, we don't know where we are going, how long we will stay or if we will or will not have connectivity.  I told ya this trip was to stretch our comfort zones - - -

If you don't hear from us, try to visualize Tana sitting by the Salton Sea, communicating with God and his lovely creatures.

The Salton Sea, on a cloudy February day.
Even cloudy works for me!

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