Arizona trip, Day 1 - December 22, 2007

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is the largest lake in California, and it's not natural! Until 1905 it was a dry lake, then engineers accidentally redirected the Colorado River into it. Two years and 376 square miles of water later they finally stopped the flood. The lake is slowly shrinking. The shoreline where I stopped wasn't sand, it was shells. Millions and millions of shells and dead fish, it was pretty bizarre. Below Sea Level I didn't realize it at the time, but the entire Salton Sea basin is below sea level. The lowest point (under water) is only 5 feet higher that the lowest point in death valley. This sugar facility brought it to my attention though! When the Colorado river created the Salton sea they were worried that it would flood this part of the valley as well, but they were able to get it under control before that happened. Burning Fields Just south of the lake I could see giant plumes of smoke in the distance. So I spent about an hour driving farm roads trying to find the fires, I finally found one. Border Aqueduct The I-8 goes right by the Mexican border where there are no cities on either side. I was curious what the border patrol presence would be there, so I stopped at an exit. There were border patrols all over the border, every place I went on the entire trip. I never got hassled, but I did see them pull over a few windowless vans. It turns out there's also a giant aqueduct that runs through there! That definitely makes it harder for coyotes to cross! Not only that, they're rebuilding the whole aqueduct! This is a gigantic concrete river, I've never been at the bottom of one this big. It was very impressive, and ran for miles on a perfectly straight line. There were three border patrol vehicles around there, but no one hassled me. The border is less than a mile south of the aqueduct. They did apparently have a surveillance platform, but that could also have been run by the aqueduct construction crew. Imperial Dunes Awful. A hundred toy haulers and overpriced RV's. Dozens of people racing around on ATVs and dune buggies. I would have loved to get a nice photo of some giant sand dunes, but it was all polluted by tire tracks and rednecks. Yuma Proving Grounds Just north of Yuma, AZ is the Yuma Proving Grounds which is where nearly every ground weapons system the US military uses has been tested. Wikipedia: Yuma Proving Grounds. Outside the gates they have a nice museum of tanks and artillery. Out in the distance there was a white dot over the base, with the 70-200mm lens it turns out it was an aerial surveillance blimp! Space Motel In Gila Bend, AZ there's a space themed motel that was built in the 1960's by a space enthusiast. Best Western Space Age Lodge It's pretty neat, lots of space memorabilia, but a bit overpriced in my opinion... Back to Introduction - On to Day 2

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