 
Sunday, October 7, 2001 - Feeling Low
85 miles. El Centro, CA to Tamerisk RV camp, Palo Verda CA
We woke up this morning feeling lower than either of us
had been in our entire lives. Of course we were below sea level! The
entire Imperial valley is below sea level.
We got a predawn start today, easy because we were
already partially packed the night before. The first 25 miles was easy,
the valley being flat in all directions as we passed thru Imperial (pop. 4,280),
and Brawley (pop.21,738) Then the route entered back into the surrounding
desert, slowly climbing into the Algodones Dunes area where we started to pick
up a Santa Ana headwind. This slowed us down and forced a pit stop at the
dunes ranger station for water. The dunes on the south side are reserved
for RV dune use and they were much in evidence, three wheelers, four wheelers,
trucks, dune buggies, etc.; not our cup of tea. We continued on to Glamis
(pop. inconsequential) Where the RV community can drop their money, then on up a
perfectly graded road to a flat pass thru the Chocolate Mts. fighting a
headwind. The wind was not our friend today, it was against us all day.
As we climbed we passed the immense Mesquite Open Pit Gold Mine. The
tailing piles paralleled the road for at least five miles. They remove
this massive amount of over burden to recover 800 ounces of gold a day. When the
mine plays out they plan to entrain the garbage from all of the giant SoCal
cities to the mine pit and cover it with the tailings. They say that will
produce more cash than the gold! Proof in deed that one mans trash is
another man's treasure.
After that we passed a fenced tortoise reserve.
Only a few cactus and juniper grow here. We took a break at the top where
the silence was truly deafening. From there the road was a series of dips,
terrain I like to refer to as "tactical". You coast down and try
to coast up the coming rise before peddling like mad to get to the top and then
repeat. Then came the pedal down descent into the Colorado River Valley.
Here we could see rain and hear distant thunder across the river valley far off
in Arizona.
Then it was a tiring 12 miles to our campsite in Palo
Verde ( pop. 600) and a great place to get away from it all.
Here the RV camp owner allowed us to camp for free, stating that "we
consider you people to be a little bit crazy and we don't want to upset
you." He said it only rained there 3 and one half inches a year and
not to worry about the surrounding thunder and lightening, and he was right. It
never did really rain. We then slept the sleep of exhaustion on our tiny
air mattresses.
|
