January 3, 2014 El Centro, California

California here we come!  We loved Yuma, but we had been eagerly anticipating our arrival in California, so it was with much excitement we crossed the border from Arizona into California. We noticed the landscape went from flat, desert dirt with small shrubs and cacti, to a more sandy appearance with huge sand dunes with little or no plant growth.  We saw some dune buggies in the distance climbing the high sand dunes.

Sand dunes with dune buggies in the distance. taken from car window

Sand dunes with dune buggies in the distance. taken from car window

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Campers boondocking in the desert

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Dune buggy paths

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one of many canals in the desert

Our first stop was the small farming community of El Centro.  In this area we noticed more evidence of farming, especially lettuce and other greens.  We also noticed huge covered bales of hay along the side of the road in several places.  There is not much to do in El Centro and the RV resort where we are staying is geared more to golf and not much else, so we used our time there doing paperwork and trip planning for January.  The resort was very quiet and we enjoyed the relaxing time there.

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The highlight of our time in El Centro was when we drove 60 miles north to see the Salton Sea. At 45 miles and 25 miles wide it is one of the world’s largest inland seas and the largest lake in California.  It is also 227 feet below sea level which makes it one of the lowest spots on earth.  With its marine, freshwater, desert, wetland, and agricultural habitats, it has the second highest number of different species in the country with over 400 species.  More importantly is the dependence of a large bird population on the lake because just below the surface is an abundance of fish.  Scientists called the Salton Sea “California’s Crown Jewel of avian biodiversity” and is thought to be one of the most productive fisheries in the world.  1-2014-01-05

The Salton Sea is currently 25% saltier than the ocean and getting saltier every day because the lake has no outlets.  Water flows into the lake from the Whitewater, Alamo and New rivers which brings salt from the Colorado River.  The only way water can leave the Salton Sea is by evaporation.  There is estimated to be 500 million tons of salt in the Salton Sea.  This salinity is seen as a time bomb to the future survival of fish and birds. There are government projects underway to reduce the salt.

The Salton Sea was the setting for the 2002 movie, “The Salton Sea”.  We enjoyed our visit there very much.  We had read before going that the smell there can be very bad, especially during windy days as the wind dredges up all the sediment and dead materials from the bottom of the sea.  The wind was calm during our visit and we detected no unpleasant odors.  They have a very nice visitors center at the park 04-IMG_20140105_140215 02-IMG_20140105_133459 06-IMG_20140105_131558 03-IMG_20140106_222511 where we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch 05-IMG_20140105_131546

Rock with petroglyphs

Rock with petroglyphs

 

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and saw a short movie about the history of the area.  The park has full hookup sites but for a third of the cost you can boondock at one of their wilderness areas.  While driving around we stopped and chatted with a couple from Oregon who had come down to the Salton Sea for 2 months and were hosts at one of the wilderness areas on the sea.  With the closest grocery store being 30 miles away, and the only place to get water and dump our fluids being 7 miles each way, we decided this was not a location we would come back to camp.

After leaving the visitors center we drove to nearby Mecca where we did some desert canyon geocaching.  We completed finding 200 geocaches in 2013 and now are starting our goal of another 100 in 2014. We had a great time and saw some truly beautiful areas.  This is a good time to do some desert geocaching because we feel fairly confident that we will not encounter any crawling creatures, though we are always vigilante about where we place our feet and hands no matter where we are geocaching. 12-IMG_20140105_144743 09-IMG_20140105_143458 13-IMG_20140105_144751 14-IMG_20140105_144839 10-IMG_20140105_143623 11-IMG_20140105_144437 15-IMG_20140105_144953 16-IMG_20140105_153610

1-20140105_161251One geocache was hidden inside a plastic duck hidden in this canyon

 

 

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