Salton Sea, Slab City and a shake!!
Yesterday we set out to see the visitor centre and visit a date farm.  We had a lot of things we wanted to do and have only a week to do them all so were trying to plan our week.  There was a shooting involving a drunk driver and the police (no police were injured) so the road was all blocked off and we ended up missing the visitor centre.  So we decided to just take a drive through the area.  For the most part the nearby cities and towns are in the Coachella Valley.  They all sort of run together like Phoenix and area.  We are staying in Indio but 1000 Palms, Palm Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta and others are all really close by.  We got on the freeway and ended up in Palm Springs.  It was very windy and dusty.  We walked around the downtown area in Palm Springs and it is really quite pretty.  There is a lot of grass which seems really strange in the desert.  I know they have lots of programs in place to conserve water so I was trying to research why they have so much grass which requires constant watering.  Most of the articles were a little dated and I am interested in finding out more about that.  After a couple of hours of wandering we decided to try to see the Tahquitz Canyon which we read had a spectacular 60 foot waterfall.  The walk was about a mile uphill and we were excited about seeing the waterfall. We stopped in at the center there and the fellow told us that the waterfall is all dried up and has been since July.  He said that it has dried up on occasion but in all his years of living here it has never been dry that long.  It is basically mountain run off.  They truly need some snow in the mountains!!  We decided not to walk up the hill so we went for a yummy late  lunch at the Yard House.

 Some kind of little ground squirrel close to the Tahquitz Canyon entrance.

 There are lots of palm trees in this area and they are amazing.  The only palm native to California is the California Fan Palm which is the one in these pictures.  Many other varieties, as well as date palms can be found in the area as well.

Today we went on a road trip to see the Salton Sea, Slab City and area.  Slab City, which is close to Niland is about an hour away from Indio.  It was an interesting drive.  Along the way we saw date palms, citrus, grapes and fields of lettuce  and a few others I could not identify.  There was a lot of irrigation going on as well.

Slab City is about an hour drive from the Mexican Border.  There was a huge border patrol presence here and we went through a road stop area as well.  It used to be a WW2 military base.  Now it is home to about 1000 people in the winter.  Mostly people who want to live off the grid.  I read some can live there for about 100.00 a month.  Not sure what they do for water and showers but some of the homes had big water containers. They are fairly close to a town called Niland which had some interesting homes as well.  Most of them had fences all they way around and signs that said keep out.  One had a big sign that read "everyone, stay away."  That one sort of made us giggle.

 I guess you just park your home wherever you see a spot you like.

 coolest visitor centre I've ever seen

 And if its hot, just pull up a seat under that shade tree right there

 Looks like some of those "leaves" have fallen off the tree.

 My nieces came her last year and Sydney sang at this "clubhouse"/community centre??  they call it the Range

Better watch out for Papa Jimi.   It was a friendly place however, everyone who rode past on their bike or motorcycle  or just out and about gave a friendly wave and smile.

 this is Salvation Mountain.  It was created by a fellow named Leonard Knight.  He settled near Niland in 1984 and created the mountain out of cement.  It crumbled and the current one is made out of adobe clay covered in paint.  In 1967 he had a life altering experience and discovered God which is pretty apparent if you can read - LOL.  You can walk up the mountain if you stay on the yellow brick road the sign says.

 He makes all the flowers out of window putty.  Most of his paint and clay are donated.  The colors are really pretty.  I walked up the back of the mountain as it is still dirt and clay and not as slippery as the yellow brick road.

 Around the side of the mountain is an area where there are a few little rooms.  No idea why there was a duck decoy hanging in this room.

 It was fascinating as well as a little spooky for some reason.  There was a strange fan above one of these rooms and it made the strangest sound.

We then drove back along the Salton Sea .

 the Salton Sea is a very important bird area.  Over 400 species visit the area or fly through on migration

The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline lake (the biggest lake in California actually).  It is located on the San Andreas Fault and is 234 feet below sea level.

 The Salton Sea was accidentally created in 1905 when irrigation canals were dug to increase water for irrigation.  Long story short, the canals overflowed the canals and the Colorado river flooded the area for 2 years.  Due to high salinity very few species of fish can live here.  These are mostly tilapia and they die off every year due to fluctuations in water level, increasing salinity and fertiliser runoff results in increased algae and elevated bacteria.  The beach you walk on is crunchy dried fish parts.  In some places I bet it is 8 inches or more deep.

The area was once a resort area and deserted towns are still there. It is a very strange area to visit and it is kinda smelly too!

I very much enjoyed all the birds!

 Very cool to see a snowy and a great egret beside each other.  I watched and heard one of these egrets peck at another bird.  They make quite a honk!

 There were tons of pelicans.

 Most of the pelicans were the American white ones but there were a few of these pretty brown ones mixed in.

I annoyed the heck out of this poor heron.  I wanted to try and get him in flight so kind of kept getting a little too close for his comfort.

And last but not least -

A date shake!!  I had not had one for over a year.  I do believe I will be having at least one more while we are here.  One day we are going to another date farm that you can walk around the garden and learn more about the dates.

On the Road Again . . .
We left Canada from Estevan on October 22/14.  My sisters and I planned a weekend of fun the weekend prior to celebrate our parent's 60th wedding anniversary.  We all cooked and invited ourselves for the weekend.  It was really great and almost the whole family was there except for 2 of the grand-kids who have the travel bug!!  Let's hope they don't mind me posting these pictures but they are so fun and I love to share my wonderful family whenever possible.

These are all my sisters and me!

We also managed to do some visiting with Don's mom and sisters who live there as well.  It was a great few days. We managed a few nice walks and my mom beat me in our scrabble tournament. I guess I need more practise!

Our first night was in Miles City, Montana.  We only went to Billings the next day as there were high wind warnings.  The weather in Billings was pretty nice so we went for a walk along the Yellowstone River on a trail to an island called Norm's Island.  The fall colors and leaves were just beautiful. 

The next day we had a longer driving day to Fort Hall.  We got up early and headed to Twin Falls where we had planned to stay a couple of days and - well,  look at the falls.  The day we got there it was mostly sunny and not too cold so we headed out shortly after finding our RV park as the forecast was for cold and rain.
This area has a lot of agriculture.  Of course potatoes but also a lot of sugar beets.  There were field after field of sugar beets and I had never seen them harvesting before so it was very interesting. There were lots of trucks hauling the beets to be processed.  No idea how the beets didn't come flying out of the truck although we did see a few of the beets on roadways.

  The first falls we went to are the Shoshone.  This was just a beautiful area.

 this little waterfall was in the gorge as well.

 Not sure what this red viney stuff was but it looked so pretty on the rock with the falls.  This was not part of the Shoshone falls but it was super pretty so I had to take a picture.

These are the Shoshone falls.

This is the Hansen Bridge which is over the Snake River.  The rock is very interesting black volcanic rock and looks amazing with the water and foliage.   The valley, called the Hagerman Valley was formed 15,000 years ago by the Bonneville flood which gouged out the huge canyons. The flood enlarged the canyon 7 times its original size.

These were of the Twin Falls - the pictures we saw on line were of two falls - hence "twin".  Not sure who was missing "tw"or "in" but we assumed it must be because of the way they dammed up the water.  Still pretty but sort of a let down after the Shoshone.
That night it rained and was still raining when we got up in the morning.  We waited till we thought we saw a bit of blue sky and headed out to do some more sightseeing.  It was a cold day and fleece with windbreaker was not really warm enough and the wind was very cold on the ears.   The day before when we drove over this huge bridge we could see that someone was planning a BASE jump off the Perrine Memorial Bridge and we wanted to see if we could watch.  A special note to my niece Shari - NO!!

 Can you see him hanging over the edge of the bridge?  There were 4 of them all suited up ready to jump but the other 3 either chickened out or decided it was too windy.

 At the bottom there is a flag which they aim to land near.  This guy was pretty close.

The bridge is 1,500 feet long and 486 feet above the Snake River.   BASE jumpers use the Perrine Bridge as their launching pad for parachuting from the bridge to the canyon floor below. BASE jumping is a sport involving the use of a parachute to jump from fixed objects. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for the four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: Building, Antenna, Span, Earth. 
We also walked out by the visitor centre (which was under construction or something so not open) there was a beautiful view of the gorge from there.  As we looked out we could just see (and feel) the rain coming closer and closer.  Well, one of us could, the other one sat in the car  LOL.  I of course watched it until I started to get wet.  That night it got really cold minus 7 to be exact.

The next day we stayed in Ely, Nevada and then to Vegas for 2 nights.  We are now in Lake Havasu and will be heading to Indio, California for a week tomorrow.