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February 24, 2010, a Wednesday
Salton Sea to Joshua Tree National Park (Jumbo Rock), California, USA
— Photographed birds at the Salton Sea then went to Joshua Tree National Park
I got up around 6:30 and prepared breakfast to go: Clif Bars and instant coffee made with a sample of Starbucks Via Italian Roast and Nescafé Clásico. I left by myself at 7:05 in the Jeep.

I went to the Red Hill Marina to see if I could photograph the birds from the car, and they were too skittish.

I stopped to photograph a killdeer atop an irrigation berm (below left), and the setting was fantastic! It was at eye level from the window of the Jeep, and the narrow dirt berm provided just enough space for it to stand and created some fantastic separation from the background.

I stopped to photograph a pair of burrowing owls at the entrance to their burrow (above right). Their burrow was beneath a concrete irrigation channel, so it's not the most natural-looking setting, but it is their natural environment.

I drove around our standard loop and photographed several brown pelicans in flight. The one in the image to the left still has most of its breeding plumage.

I returned to the RV around 9:45. I downloaded the images I took this morning while preparing the RV to move. I stowed the solar-electric panels, then we hooked up the Jeep to tow nearby. We got underway around 10:30.

We took CA-111 north along the east side of the Salton Sea, then took a small road northeast from Mecca to head towards Joshua Tree National Park. The road wound through a very interesting badlands-like canyon. I had Clif Bars for lunch — yes, the same thing I had for breakfast.

We entered Joshua Tree National Park through the Cottonwood Entrance at 12:15.

We stopped at the Cottonwood Campground at 12:30 to use the dump station and take on fresh water. Then we went to the nearby Cottonwood Visitor Center to pick up a map. We got underway again at 1:20.

We reached Jumbo Rock Campground around 2:20. We drove around, then unhooked the Jeep and looked some more for a good spot. None of the spaces had Verizon Wireless coverage, so we left in the Jeep and ...

Went to Belle Campground. There was very limited verizon Wireless coverage in the area, but not at any of the sites where we could camp. :( Because it was quieter there than at Jumbo Rock Campground, we decided to sign up to stay there. We put the tag on the post to hold the site, then went ...

Back to Jumbo Rock Campground to get the RV. We decided to stay at Jumbo Rock because we had told people that we'd be staying there. So, I leveled the RV then left by myself in the Jeep and went ...

Back to Bell Campground to get our tag off of the post. (We hadn't paid for that site yet.)

I returned to Jumbo Rock Campground and filled out another registration form and paid our $10/night fee. We left around 4:35.

We went to our friends' G&L-O from Osoyoos, British Columbia, who were camping in their fifth-wheel in Twentynine Palms, just to the north of Joshua Tree National Park. We had appetizers of an avocado salad with shrimp that was very tasty. Then we had dinner of grilled salmon, red potatoes cooked in a Nuwave Infrared Tabletop Oven, and broccoli and cheese — all very tasty. We had chocolate-covered strawberries and cookies made from equal parts of chocolate, peanuts, butterscotch morsels, and Chinese noodles.

Our mutual friends B&A from Sidney, British Columbia, came over to visit after dinner. They were camping in their Class-C RV right near G&L-O, and we all had a good time. We left around 9:40.

We returned to the RV around 10:05. I downselected the images from today in iView, then did a quick downselect of images from yesterday in Capture One (C1) so I could select two images for the blog. I processed those two images, then went to bed at 12:15!

Responses

February 26, 2010, 6:57 PM
by Doug
More real beauty's my friend
D

New responses are closed.