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February 21, 2010, a Sunday
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (Yaqui Well) to Salton Sea, California, USA
— Moved to the Salton Sea
We took it easy this morning. I had my regular breakfast, then worked up a blog entry. We prepped the RV to move and I stowed the solar-electric panels. We had been planning to stay in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park longer, but we're leaving because the flowers are just starting to bloom and we don't have any internet access. We hooked up the Jeep and got underway at 10:53.
We headed west on CA-78.
We stopped at the Desert Ironwood Resort at 11:12 to see if we could use their dump station and get some fresh water. They wanted to charge us $20, so we passed. We got underway again at 11:17.
We went to the Shell in Westmorland around 12:05 to see if they had a map of the Salton Sea area, and they didn't. They did have a dump station though. :) We got in line behind some fifth-wheel trailers and waited. I had some Clif Bars for lunch. We witnessed an environmental disaster when the guy ahead of us dumped. As soon as he removed the cover from his dump plumbing, the black tank started spewing all over the ground! His black tank valve must have been open, and there was no going back. The whole tank, complete with solid matter, emptied out on the ground. After the tank finished emptying, he washed it down into the drain before hooking up his dump hose to dump his gray tank. Because of the disaster, J had me wear plastic bags over my boots when I dumped — low-budget haz-mat booties! We took on fresh water as we dumped — what a deal. :) After we finished, I pulled away from the dump station then had a Clif Bar to finish lunch while J got a map off of her computer. We left at 12:57.
We went to the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center at 1:15 to pick up a map of the area. The friendly woman at the desk pointed out a nice place for us to boondock nearby that wasn't in the refuge. :)
We reached a great place to boondock and I was able to park the RV on a level spot and also be aligned for solar-electric power all without using any Lynx Levelers — it doesn't get much better than that! :) I tilted the solar-electric panels then went inside and went online through our nice Verizon Wireless Broadband Access signal — fantastic! The only thing wrong, and a big thing at that, was that the wind was blowing like crazy, so the Salton Sea would have nasty waves instead of a nice smooth surface. I did some computer work, then we left at 4:30 in the Jeep.
We checked out an area where we had photographed burrowing owls on our previous visit in 2008. We didn't see any owls at the first burrow, but one was out at the second. The vegetation surrounding the burrow was messy, so we didn't stop to photograph it.
Then we drove along the shore of the Salton Sea, and checked out our favorite driving loop for photography. The sea was all churned up and it was looking nasty, so we didn't even consider shooting anything. We saw great egret, snowy egret, great blue heron, black-crowned night-heron, western grebe, eared grebe, unidentified gulls and shore birds, killdeer, and an osprey!
We returned to the RV around 5:35 and I did some computer work.
We had dinner around 6:35 of leftover chili and chicken enchiladas for me and leftover citrus salmon, marinated chicken, and long-grained and wild rice for J. I had the last slice of J's banana cream pie for dessert.
After dinner, I had some Asbach Uralt while doing some more computer work.
We headed west on CA-78.
We stopped at the Desert Ironwood Resort at 11:12 to see if we could use their dump station and get some fresh water. They wanted to charge us $20, so we passed. We got underway again at 11:17.
We went to the Shell in Westmorland around 12:05 to see if they had a map of the Salton Sea area, and they didn't. They did have a dump station though. :) We got in line behind some fifth-wheel trailers and waited. I had some Clif Bars for lunch. We witnessed an environmental disaster when the guy ahead of us dumped. As soon as he removed the cover from his dump plumbing, the black tank started spewing all over the ground! His black tank valve must have been open, and there was no going back. The whole tank, complete with solid matter, emptied out on the ground. After the tank finished emptying, he washed it down into the drain before hooking up his dump hose to dump his gray tank. Because of the disaster, J had me wear plastic bags over my boots when I dumped — low-budget haz-mat booties! We took on fresh water as we dumped — what a deal. :) After we finished, I pulled away from the dump station then had a Clif Bar to finish lunch while J got a map off of her computer. We left at 12:57.
We went to the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center at 1:15 to pick up a map of the area. The friendly woman at the desk pointed out a nice place for us to boondock nearby that wasn't in the refuge. :)
We reached a great place to boondock and I was able to park the RV on a level spot and also be aligned for solar-electric power all without using any Lynx Levelers — it doesn't get much better than that! :) I tilted the solar-electric panels then went inside and went online through our nice Verizon Wireless Broadband Access signal — fantastic! The only thing wrong, and a big thing at that, was that the wind was blowing like crazy, so the Salton Sea would have nasty waves instead of a nice smooth surface. I did some computer work, then we left at 4:30 in the Jeep.
We checked out an area where we had photographed burrowing owls on our previous visit in 2008. We didn't see any owls at the first burrow, but one was out at the second. The vegetation surrounding the burrow was messy, so we didn't stop to photograph it.
Then we drove along the shore of the Salton Sea, and checked out our favorite driving loop for photography. The sea was all churned up and it was looking nasty, so we didn't even consider shooting anything. We saw great egret, snowy egret, great blue heron, black-crowned night-heron, western grebe, eared grebe, unidentified gulls and shore birds, killdeer, and an osprey!
We returned to the RV around 5:35 and I did some computer work.
We had dinner around 6:35 of leftover chili and chicken enchiladas for me and leftover citrus salmon, marinated chicken, and long-grained and wild rice for J. I had the last slice of J's banana cream pie for dessert.
After dinner, I had some Asbach Uralt while doing some more computer work.