Saturday morning we walked to the highway to read the interpretive sign we notice on our drive in to the camp site. We discovered that the site had been used for the filming of the film Bugsy. We then walked on to take a look at the rv park down the road. It is almost empty and we found out why. For 45.00 a night you get not much more than we have where we are. They haven't got wi-fi working and they charge more for their showers than the SVRA area charges for theirs. Interesting. But they do have a small convenience store, sells ice cream sandwiches (9:00 A.M. seems a bit early, but we have to take advantage of what is available) as well as hamburgers, fries, the usual fried fare, beer and oil for ATV's. We stopped at another interpretive sign across the highway from the store. It commemorates Juan Bautista de Anza's 2000 mile trip from Mexico to San Francisco Bay with 200+ people and 1000+ animals to establish Spain's claim to the area. The rest of the day was spent watching people both young and old tear around on one of ATV's dirt bikes or jeeps. The neighbours had a young fellow, maybe 10 years old, that spent the entire afternoon doing a circle up to the top of the hill, down around and back up. We first noticed him when he was following his parents in their jeep, but finally the parents gave up and the kid spent the rest of the day riding his dirt bike around in a large circle. Who says kids aren't a dizzy lot... We are expecting that the camping area will again become a serene location as everyone heads back to work tomorrow afternoon.
What amazing weather in this area. Sunday was another hot sunny day. Even we are finding it hot and lamenting that we cannot use our air conditioner during the hottest part of the day. But then the alternative of being somewhere where it goes down to freezing overnight is not attractive, so we will quit complaining. We explored some of the area this morning, stopped at a place where another movie "Into the Wild" was made in 2007. We stopped at Devils slide area, which really shows the geologic history of the area. We climbed up Black Butte, which was an unsuccessful gold mining area at one time. Once we got to the top we discovered we had climbed the steep side, as there was a fairly easy trail down the back that the ATV's, jeeps and other sand loving vehicles use.
We did see one fellow climb the steep side in his truck, turn around, and then come back down, all while his young kids took pictures of him from the bottom of the hill.
Barrel Spring, a water source near the gold operation was the result of the miners digging a hole in the sand and placing a barrel in it to collect water. The mine did not produce any gold. On our way back to the trailer we stopped at Ocotillo Wells townsite. Really just a grouping of trailers scattered about with gravel roads and not too many facilities. We got back in time to watch the last couple of ends of the bronze metal Brier curling game, then the Nascar race from Vegas and finally the gold medal Brier game.
Monday was another hot sunny day. We spent the morning exploring the area. Most of the ATV'ers have left, so the park is almost ours alone. Our first stop was at an interpretive sign explaining that this part of California had been explored for oil during the World War II, without success. There were oil finds in California to help fill the demand created by Henry Ford. The economic boom spread here to the Imperial Valley, however the oil boom was fleeting. Our next stop was at the newest geologic feature in Ocotillo Wells, a gas dome. The neigbouring mountains store water underground, building hydrostatic pressure in the water table. This pressurized water is pushed upwards through natural cracks in the desert floor. The results are these gas domes, which have mud and gas bubbling up to the surface.
Our final stop along this interpretive route was the artesian well, a hot water well discovered when the Imperial Valley Oil and Development company were drilling for oil.
We had some fun driving the route past the artesian well, as the route followed a narrow wash with some narrow turns, and many high ridges across the trail. However, the truck did manage to get us through this area back to the highway. We then headed into Salton City to have lunch at the Alamo Restuarant. It had been advertised in many spots along the way, so we figured we would give it a try. We had a great lunch of burritos, with enough leftovers to have a rerun for dinner, and because it is so warm out we enjoyed ice cold Mexican Beer.
Time to start heading slowly north. As we headed north through the San Bernadino mountains, the temp was in the 30's C. The trip took longer than anticipated because we forgot to turn off the air conditioner so the transmission on the truck heated up on a steep uphill grade. We stopped, took pictures of the beautiful rocks in the area, had lunch and eventually carried on, with the air conditioner off. No more transmission issues.
We arrived at Sierra Trails RV Park just north of Mojave about 3:00 P.M, our home for the next week.
Wednesday was clean up day. After being out in the SVRA land without any services we appreciated having a vacuum and a more abundant supply of water. It is also nice to be close to grocery store. Today was our first cloudy and cool day in a long time. After dinner tonight we even had a few drops of rain, a commodity much in demand in this part of California.
Thursday we had a perfect day to go hiking in Red Rock Canyon State Park. The cliffs were layers of red, white, pinks and browns. It is obvious spring had come to the high desert as the flowers where in blooms. We have never seen so many flowers, in so many colors in the desert. We hiked up Hagen Canyon and carried on up a side canyon. The fluted folds, the result of wind and rain erosion, were quite spectacular. We saw many formations that with a bit of imagination looked like various animals, turtles, camels, owls etc.
After our first hike we headed across the highway to Red Cliffs.
The hike there was a short interpretive trail, but we carried on up the valley on a horse trail. Eventually we came to a Birds of Prey area that is closed from Feb 1st to July 1st so as to give them solitude during their nesting season. The rock formations and colours in the whole area was really worth the time it took to walk out to this area. After hiking about three hours in total in the nice warm weather we deserved to stop for a milkshake on the way back to the trailer.
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