Southern California

California, southern California, Sunny California. The navy has an air base here because they can fly almost every day and Yuma has the Guinness record for the sunniest place on earth.

We drove through a section of a sandy desert just west of Yuma, the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, where hundreds of people each year injure themselves badly or kill themselves in the name of recreation - dune buggies, motor bikes and 4-wheel drives in large numbers and unregulated. It's a horror story.

Also winding its way through the sand is the Coachella Canal, built 80 years ago, that takes water from the Colorado River almost 200 km north for irrigation. It's wide, cement lined and surely must fill with sand, leak and evaporate.

To get to San Diego we had to go over a steep mountain pass 4000' high. There were radiator filling tanks every mile or so.

The country is naturally dry but any areas that can be irrigated are. I wonder if they have salt problems like we do. They certainly have water supply problems - or will have in the future.

PS All of the above photos were taken from the car as we were zooming along at 75 miles an hour. They don't have pull overs on the National Highways.

In which we meet the Colorado again

On our way to Arches NP we again chose a back road (128). We found another ghost town near the turnoff from the freeway and I suspect it didn't survive when it was bypassed. We met a couple of Aussies there, also poking around checking everything out. We had the place to ourselves.

Cisco, Colorado

The road followed the Colorado River for most of the way and as we descended towards Moab the river valley became deeper and the rock formations became more impressive. And it was quite startling to see irrigated areas juxtapositioned against such a dramatic background.

A skink with a very long blue tail.

The Colorado and hot springs

Colorado. So many beautiful mountain valleys - I don't know where to look!

For a few kilometres our road shared a narrow valley with a train line and the headwaters of the Colorado River which was behaving like a mountain stream. And then we entered a wide valley near Kremmling where the river widens and slows down to a meander. It was looking very placid on this late summer day. 

We will meet the Colorado again later in our trip when we visit the mighty Grand Canyon. It's sad to think that such a mighty river is reduced to zero by the time it reaches its estuary in Mexico because our greedy demand for water.

More about railways and the things that have been done in the name of progress. Steamboat Springs (a large city now) is called that because one of their hot springs used to sound like a steamboat. And then someone built a railway line only metres from the spring and now it doesn't 'chuff' any more.

And finally, a bit of wildlife - a snake I nearly stepped on. We changed our minds about exploring a mountain meadow after that but then I did a bit of research and think it's maybe a Wandering Garter Snake, common and harmless.