Sat - Dec. 26th
The Salton Sea is in the Imperial Valley of California where the majority of the vegetables for the country are grown. It was created in 1905 when the Colorado River flooded unchecked for 18 months before they managed to get it stopped.
It is 35 miles long and 15 miles wide. It has been 
three times as big, five different times over the past 1,300 years and completely dried up each time. It is 25% saltier than the ocean and continues to get saltier all the time due to evaporation and agricultural runoff. The salinity is threatening the fish life, which in turn will decimate the migratory bird population. 95% of 
the wetlands of the Pacific Coast are gone and the Salton Sea is one of the last remaining stopovers on the Pacific Flyway. The Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge is here and 18,000 year old Obsidian Butte, an extinct volcano. It is very near the San Andreas Fault. They have thousands of earth quakes each year, but they are so small they 
just go unnoticed. We watched some migrant workers harvesting vegetables. It looked like cauliflower. They were whacking off the tops and packing them in boxes to ship. The next picture is from the pool and hot tub area at the spa campground where we stayed four days over Christmas, a little holiday gift to ourselves. This is 
John walking back to our campsite. They had two pools, six hot mineral pools, two steam rooms and every other thing you could want. They had golf, tennis, table tennis, horseshoes, bocci ball, shuffle board, crafts, dances, line dancing, square dancing (and you know how John loves to dance), two laundry mats, library, hair salon, massages,
store, weekly farmers market, guided hikes, etc.
The Schwan's truck even stopped every week.
Views from our camper. The first three were on the hiking path directly behind our camper at the base of the Chocolate Mountains.
three times as big, five different times over the past 1,300 years and completely dried up each time. It is 25% saltier than the ocean and continues to get saltier all the time due to evaporation and agricultural runoff. The salinity is threatening the fish life, which in turn will decimate the migratory bird population. 95% of 
the wetlands of the Pacific Coast are gone and the Salton Sea is one of the last remaining stopovers on the Pacific Flyway. The Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge is here and 18,000 year old Obsidian Butte, an extinct volcano. It is very near the San Andreas Fault. They have thousands of earth quakes each year, but they are so small they 
just go unnoticed. We watched some migrant workers harvesting vegetables. It looked like cauliflower. They were whacking off the tops and packing them in boxes to ship. The next picture is from the pool and hot tub area at the spa campground where we stayed four days over Christmas, a little holiday gift to ourselves. This is 
John walking back to our campsite. They had two pools, six hot mineral pools, two steam rooms and every other thing you could want. They had golf, tennis, table tennis, horseshoes, bocci ball, shuffle board, crafts, dances, line dancing, square dancing (and you know how John loves to dance), two laundry mats, library, hair salon, massages,
store, weekly farmers market, guided hikes, etc.The Schwan's truck even stopped every week.
Views from our camper. The first three were on the hiking path directly behind our camper at the base of the Chocolate Mountains.
The campground is on a slope and we are at the top level. These views are overlooking the Salton Sea.
We went for an hour and a half bike ride today and checked out two other nearby campgrounds.
We will be leaving here Monday morning and heading south for Yuma and more new sights.
Happy New Year Everybody!
Tarra
No comments:
Post a Comment