Indio, California

We took a drive to the Salton Sea yesterday. It is a part of a California State Park that is located about 30 miles south of Indio in the middle of scores of date palm tree farms.

It’s a rather unique place on earth because it’s located at over 200 feet below sea level and it stinks to high heaven. Yet lots of people camp, boat, picnic, and visit there…

Here are a few fast facts about the Salton Sea from the California Parks Department:

Water and Geographic Facts

• The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake. It is the third largest saline lake in the nation.
• The Sea has no outlet.
• Its surface elevation is 227 feet below sea level.
• The average depth of the Salton Sea is 29.9 feet, its deepest is about 50 feet.
• The Sea’s watershed is 8,000 square miles.
• Annual inflow is 1.3 million acre-feet with an annual salt load of 4 million tons.
• About 1.3 million acre-feet of water evaporates from the Salton Sea each year.

Aviary Facts

• Located on the Pacific Flyway, about 400 different species of birds have been counted at the Salton Sea–almost half of the 900 species known to exist on the North American Continent.
• During winter migration up to four million individual birds are estimated to use the Sea each day. There is a greater species variety and more individual species here than any other place in the nation.

We saw lots of birds on our visit including a Great White Pelican and several types of herons.

The smell is caused by decaying organic matter and has a rotten-egg odor. In the recent past, massive die offs of talipia have caused an increase of the smell causing odor alerts in areas up to 150 miles away. Droughts cause an increase in the salinity of the water which causes fish to die. According to one article I read almost 8 million fish died on one day in 1999. Luckily, the day we visited the smell wasn’t that bad…

We were expecting the shoreline to be sand, but it was more than 99% full of shells and less than one percent of fish bones.

Turns out that the shells are from barnacles. According to a volunteer I talked with “The barnacles arrived at the Salton Sea during World War II because military sea planes would regularly land at the Salton Sea, thus bringing with them. The barnacles ended up flourishing in the Salton Sea environment.” And they die off by the millions…

While the Salton Sea is not the most pleasant place to visit, it is one of the most interesting I’ve been to. 
This is not my photo, but you can see why the Salton Sea is a bird watcher’s paradise!

Indio, California

We did the most touristy thing available for the city of Indio yesterday by visiting the Shields Date Garden.

The company was founded in 1924 by Floyd and Bess Shields. Floyd Shields was one of the pioneering date farmers in the still-young date industry of the Coachella Valley.

The buildings definitely have an early 1940’s feel…

Posters advertise what’s available inside. I love how the poster advertising the “Romance & Sex Life of the Date” movie states that it is “in sound & color”. That is a good clue that this establishment has been here a while…

There’s a garden to walk around, but we skipped on that because Sophie was in the car.

I came really close to buying some of this pottery. The dots were added so that they are all raised. Very cute and colorful!

We ordered a couple of beverages for our ‘dinner’.

Rich isn’t a huge date fan so he opted for a Root Beer Float. He hadn’t had one in years, and he’s had three in the past two months. He declared this one was the best.

The young woman making the date shakes makes them three at a time, and she never stops making them.

I had the quintessential drink for the store: a date shake. It was very good. The shake wasn’t saturated with dates and had just a hint of the date flavor until I got to the bottom where most of the date pieces had settled. Then it was very datey tasting–perfect for someone like me who likes dates.

Of course, I had to Google to learn all about dates…

From How to Grow Dates

Dates are grown on a date palm tree. Date palms are either male or female, and you will need one of each in order to have any fruit.

Date palms are not pollinated by insects or birds, but by the wind. With only a few trees, you are taking a risk that nothing will pollinate and therefore will produce no fruit. That means part of your annual gardening routine will have to be hand-pollinating your date trees.

Early each year, the male trees will produce sheaths of pollen. You will have to collect it (it’s just a fine powder) and then dust it over the female flowers once your female trees are in bloom. A sheath weighs about ten pounds.

The female flowers are quite pretty.

Here’s a bunch of dates that are ripening.

As the dates ripen, they are often covered with muslin to protect them from insects and birds. The dates are heavy, so the bags are stuck between the fronds to help hold the weight.

After seeing how labor intensive it is to grow dates, I now understand why they are so expensive!

Indio, California

We drove through and explored the Joshua Tree National Park yesterday. It’s an amazingly diverse park that encompasses two distinct desert ecosystems: Colorado and Mojave.

The Mojave Desert is the western half of the park and is at elevations above 3000 feet. Joshua trees, which aren’t really trees but a type of yucca plant, grow in this desert at about an inch a year.

The trees bloom from February through April. We saw blooms at the highest elevations, but I didn’t get a picture of one in bloom because there was no place to stop where they were blooming. Here’s what the blooms look like.

The Colorado Desert is the eastern half of the park and lies below 3000 feet. It’s a part of the Sonoran Desert which covers southern Arizona and northwestern Mexico.

My favorite plant here is the Ocotillo (awk-oh-tea-yo).

When it’s in bloom, most of it here was just starting to bloom this week, it’s spectacular. The tips turn a brilliant orange.

We drove to the top of the Keys View lookout point to take in stunning views of the Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea.

Another highlight was the Jumbo Rocks area with it’s  Flinstone-like rocks. There are other rocks like these that reside in the Hidden Valley which was a legendary cattle-rustlers hideout.

There are a lot of campers and rock climbers in the area. And by one group of climbers we saw this amazing car that warranted a picture. The customization includes a spider web door and bicycle chain welded to the fender wells.  

Indio, California

The Coachella (co-chell-a) Valley is 300 square miles and includes multiple cities including Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Cathedral City, and Indio.

The valley population is just below 500,000 which grows by 100,000 during the winter months with ‘snow birds’.

From Wikipedia:

The area is surrounded by three mountain ranges (Santa Rosa Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, and Little San Bernardino Mountains) and the San Gorgonio Mountain. These mountains peak at around 11,000 feet and tend to average between 5,000 to 7,000 feet.

Elevations on the Valley floor range from 1600 ft above sea level at the north end of the Valley to 250 ft below sea level around Mecca.

In the summer months daytime temperatures range from 104 to 112 °F and nighttime lows from 75 to 86 °F. During winter, the daytime temperatures range from 68 to 88 °F and corresponding nights range from 46 to 65 °F making it a popular winter resort destination.

Due to its warm year-round climate the region’s agricultural sector produces fruits such as mangoes, figs and dates.

We went for a walk in the nearby city of La Quinta along a paved trail.

This tree’s flowers look like super-buttered popcorn.

While much of the vegetation was similar to that we saw in the Phoenix area, we didn’t see any cacti here.

Believe it or not, we actually saw a bit of snow on the top of this mountain. What a surprise! Later in the day it snowed even more up in the mountain ranges.

On the other side of the valley we drove along the south side of the Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge contains the majority of critical habitat for the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard. This threatened species is restricted to the refuge dune system and a few other small areas.

The refuge is almost entirely closed to the public to protect the lizard. However, there is a trail that runs through a section of the refuge available for horseback riders.

The Coachella Fringe-toed Lizard escapes the heat by “swimming” or burrowing beneath the sand. That’s one awesome looking lizard!

The refuge, at least the part of it we saw, was sand dune upon sand dune upon sand dune…

I have to admit that the sand reminded me of Fallon, and that’s one part of living in Fallon I don’t miss.

The sand is about to overtake the fence and cross the road…

We had a great day exploring these two parts of the valley. And we’re looking forward to exploring even more in the days to follow. 🙂

Indio, California

We’re in California. The 11th state we’ve stayed in in Homer.

Remember this old song?

California here I come
Right back where I started from

That’s approptiate for me now because Carol and I were born in California. So in a way, I’m back home.

It was raining so much yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to take pictures. It’s beautiful today, and here are a few photos from our park…

Sophie’s in heaven because there is GRASS!

After being in the Phoenix area where almost all grass is reserved for golf courses, grass in RV spaces feels decadent!

On our morning walk, Sophie and I were rewarded with a couple of road runner sightings. The female was camera shy.

Apparently these must be common sights here because I was the only one intrigued by them.

When I saw this azalea bush last night, all the branches were upright. This morning they are heavily laden with raindrops.

I love the canoe and its occupants in this license plate.

We’ve only seen two of these off road RVs in our travels. This couple has their own travel blog: traveljoy.ch.

And, of course I checked out the pickleball courts as soon as I could.

The great thing about our spot is that I can hear that heavenly sound of balls bouncing so I know when to head over for play. 🙂