Well, sort of. After Susan and I finished servicing our stations, got her
car packed up with the leftover equipment, and she left to return to Pasadena,
I went for a little drive around the area.
Along the southeastern end of the Salton Sea is the Imperial Wildlife Area.
There was quite a bit of wildlife flying around and running across the dirt
roads as I made my way to my destination. The whole southern end of the sea
is also the Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge.
Surrounded by thicket and open fields, and probably about five acres in size,
was one of the weirdest little places I've ever been. It was a flat spot that
looked like a salt flat. For you technogeeks the latitude and longitude of
the place was N33.20025, W115.57864, -80m (WGS84) at the corner of Davis Road
and Schrimpf Road.
The area has...something...effervescing up through the ground. The air did not smell bad or anything.
The gas bubbling out of the ground entrains varying amounts of mud, depending on how wet the ground is, and forms everything from bubbling pools of water to mounds that were taller than me.
Of course I couldn't resist checking out the water. It was definitely not hot, and it tasted slightly salty, but not very salty. Apparently it was not poisonous.
Pretty strange to say the least.
Susan had visited this place during a wetter time of the year. She said that at that time the whole area was bubbling and her shoes became caked with thick sticky mud. I bought some flip-flops in town for the visit to spare my shoes, but the ground was pretty dry. There were a lot of little holes with gas come out of them, but only the large holes were bubbling. I left the flip-flops behind for the next person.
On the way back to Indio I decided to take the scenic route back to town. Everything was going great until the arroyos, streams, creeks and rivers that were cutting across the road kept getting deeper and deeper. Not having 4-wheel drive I eventually had to turn back and take the highway.
2018-03-05