Got up early at 8:30 (Hey! Lighten up! I'm a musician and 8:30 *IS*
early!) with nothing to do but watch football for the rest of the day,
so I fired up the bike and headed east to see what could be seen. The
temperature was a frigid but bracing 65 degrees in my garage, so I
snapped the quilted liner into my leather jacket before climbing
aboard.
50 miles east along Interstate 10 the little needle was resting on the
Empty peg, so I exited at the North Palm Springs off-ramp to tank up
at the Shell Station/Quickie-Mart there.
The ambient temperature in Palm Springs was 78 degrees in the shade,
so I snapped the quilted liner back *out* of the jacket, and stashed
it in the bags. Got to watch a little street theatre as I filled the
tank when a family of sleezeballs tried to load their little girl's
coat pockets with shoplifted items from the store in hopes that the
clerk wouldn't notice.
Didn't work, and riotous comedy ensued when Apu pushed the button that
locked the front door and then refused to let any of the family leave
until all the items were either returned or paid for. Daddy stood
there and looked at the ceiling while momma repeatedly screamed about
how she was going to sue the clerk for false imprisonment. But when
Apu picked up the phone and started dialing the Police, momma suddenly
"discovered" the stolen items in daughter's coat and returned them to
the counter.
Once out of the door, the whole family (about 6 or 7 of 'em) started
laughing about the episode while climbing into their brand-new white
Caddy Escalade.
Hmmmmm.
Back on the freeway, I passed through Indio alongside a Union Pacific
freight train that was doing almost the same speed I was: circa 85
MPH, and turned south on State Route 86 to the thriving farm hamlet of
Mecca, where I stopped for a Coke and watched the same freight train
catch up with me.
The Quickie-Mart in Mecca has something I've never seen before outside
of a truck stop: Rent-A-Shower Stalls. Three of 'em in a row. Upon
inquiry I was told that they're there for the use of the off-road
types that frequent the Glamis sand dunes on weekends and who
apparently like to shower off before they head home.
This may be understandable, as the temperature at Mecca today was 87
degrees.
I then headed southeast on State 111, a meandering and almost deserted
(hoho) two-laned blacktop road that traces the east shore of the
Salton Sea: a watery declivity of sorts that rests some 227 feet below
sea level and is roughly 35 miles long by about 15 wide: an unusual
sight in the otherwise sere brown desert. (You would think that with
Mecca at 87 degrees it would be even warmer at the Sea, which is even
lower than Mecca, but you'd be wrong. The huge body of water cools the
air around it, and it was only about 60 degrees along this stretch.
Practically freezing.)
The southern portion of the Sea (which has a higher salt percentage
than the ocean) is yclept the "Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife
Refuge" (yes, really) and if today was any example, the "wildlife"
they're speaking of is mostly avian.
I saw literally millions of seagulls, pelicans, shore birds, cranes,
egrets, herons, and unidentifiable what-have-yous along the shore
line. Apparently this is a popular wintering destination for all sorts
of migratory sea-birds.
The San Andreas Fault lies directly beneath the Salton Sea, and there
are a cluster of geo-thermal power plants there that generate
electricity by feeding water down into the fault and using the
resulting steam to power the turbines. These power plants sit right
next to the wildlife refuge, and the juxtaposition of the millions of
birds and the white steam venting up from the geothermal plants is a
rather odd but hopeful sight.
At the southeastern end of the Sea are Slab City and Salvation
Mountain; which guards the entrance to Slab City.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2042
Slab City is the remains of an old abandoned WW2 military base that's
now a free winter home to hundreds of snowbirds and their motorhomes,
and Salvation Mountain simply must be seen to be believed. Words fail
me.
Leaving Slab City, I rounded the south end of Salton Sea and proceeded
west through the dead-flat farmlands of the Imperial Valley: an area
that yeilds two and sometimes three crops a year of practically
anything you'd want to plant. Even in early January there are some
fields lying fallow, some being harvested, and yet others being
planted; all within a couple of miles of each other.
There was also an *amazing* January crop of flying insects in the
Imperial Valley, and my windscreen was plastered with tiny corpses in
less than 20 miles.
From Brawley I turned northwest on State 86, which follows the western
shore of the Salton Sea, and then turned west on S-22 through the
Borrego Badlands http://www.desertusa.com/anza_borrego/du-abpbobad.html
and eventually through Borrego Springs itself; home to an airport that
was hosting a lovingly restored P-51-D Mustang this afternoon.
Then proceeded west to Warner Springs, west further through Oak Grove,
home of the only surviving Butterfield Stage stop -and barely
surviving Butterfiled Stage barn-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33885727@N03/3991291996/sizes/l/
in California, eventually returning home via lovely Hemet with it's
famed concentration of geriatric drivers who either hate motorcyclists
or don't know that they're even there....
Altogether, a trip of just over 308 miles that got me home just in
time to watch the Cardinals pull of an unlikely overtime win.
BTW: California is really *awful*, particularly during our nordic
winters, and you should all stay away at all costs. If it weren't for
all the girls in the short skirts, I don't know *what* I'd do!
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> winters, and you should all stay away at all costs. If it weren't for
> all the girls in the short skirts, I don't know *what* I'd do!