What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

Finishing our story (finally)...

About 5:30, they (the winds) picked up again and everyone woke up. I was thinking to myself I don't want to camp again in wind like this and I don't want to have to try to make breakfast. But through some brilliant non-communication with Sweetie, I got up and attempted to make pancakes while she packed up gear, Thing 1 jumped around on rocks, and Thing 2 (very tired) threw conniptions about just about everything he encountered. The pancakes were a spectacular failure. The griddle couldn't heat up enough so... I don't even want to go into it. It's still too soon. Turns out Sweetie didn't want to have to make breakfast either, and was hoping we'd go to a restaurant for breakfast. We bailed on breakfast, finished packing and found a diner - the perfect Easter breakfast.

We had originally planned to take a longish hike this day, but since we were working on minimal sleep, we decided not to push it too hard. We drove out Rt S22 through the Badlands and found the pull-off for the hike. Again, Sweetie's hiking blog is the place to go to read about the Calcite Mine Trail. I will summarize by saying that we saw some pretty cool stuff, but it was also alternately windy and hot, and we had a very cranky Thing 2.

At this point we decide to leave Anza-Borrego behind and head over to the Salton Sea. We stopped at Salton City for a soda and some ice cream. We had the Things' mouse bone collages on the dashboard, and as I opened the door, the howling wind blew Thing 1's clean away. I managed to grab Thing 2's. Fortunately, since we anticipated something like this happening, Sweetie had taken pictures of them for posterity.

We took off up Rt 86 and had only gone a mile or so when there was a loud pop and Sweetie (who was driving) announced "We lost the car topper!" Indeed, there it was on the side of the road 300 feet behind us. I determined that we could scavenge some parts and re-hook the topper to the car, but neither of us was enthusiastic about a long drive with this thing. So we pulled off at the next stop (the Red Earth Casino - an enterprise of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians) loaded the stuff in it into the back seat with the Things, and threw the topper in the nearest trash receptacle.

Okay, that all was a little more excitement than anyone anticipated or wanted. On to a drive around the Salton Sea. I thought this would be scenic, but the road is, for the most part, fairly far away from the water, so it was mostly like driving around an industrial construction site. Are you familiar with the Salton Sea? I've linked to the wikipedia site, but for those of you too, um, 'busy' to follow the link, here's the quick dope: in 1905, a particularly heavy snowmelt and spring rain season overwhelmed some dikes built to irrigate farmland, causing the entire contents of the Colorado River to be dumped into the Salton sink FOR TWO YEARS! before it was fixed. (Oops.) An unexpected benefit of this environmental disaster was that large numbers of migrating waterfowl now had a new stopping place. On the downside, since there's no outflow for the Sea, it's getting progressively saltier (already saltier than seawater). So eventually it will become uninhabitable to everything except brine shrimp and bacteria.

We drove to the happening town of Brawley, a mere 15 miles from the Mexican border and got a room at the local Best Western (we were done with camping). After an authentic meal at a local restaurant, we got some well-deserved rest.

The next morning we drove to the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge and went birding. Well, at first we were mostly lizarding and bunnying, but eventually we got to the birds. Sweetie has now included this on her hiking blog, but I'll summarize our sightings. A short hike from the visitor's center takes you around some artificial ponds and lowlands that are preserved as habitat for the migrating birds. At the center we saw some Collared Doves and Great-tailed Grackles and Gambel's Quail. As we hiked down towards the water, we got a glimpse of a Black-headed Grosbeak, and a great (and long) view of a Western Tanager. We also caught a glimpse of a pair of Roadrunners poking around in the weeds. Finally, we got to the water and saw a ton of terns, some grebes, Black-necked Stilts in their breeding plumage (very handsome), skimmers, and more. When we got back to the Visitor's Center, the Ranger said 'Go out and look in the palm tree.' There was a Barn Owl roosting in it! The bottom of the tree was surrounded by owl pellets, which was very exciting to the Things (having just dissected some - see yesterday's entry).

From there, we drove down a series of roads where artificial burrows for Burrowing Owls had been placed , and boy howdy did we see owls - at least 15! At almost every hole there was one or two standing there looking, you know, owly. We arrived at a wetlands birding spot, but there wasn't much there (although we think we heard a Clapper Rail). We ate a quick picnic lunch and then hied it back to LA.

Despite the inconveniences and problems, we did have a pretty good time, and saw a ton of cool stuff. And we survived, so there's that. Can't say I would recommend camping in Anza-Borego during the windy months (or the hot months), but there are some cool things to see if the weather cooperates.