Thursday, April 01, 1999
Left Banning first thing in the morning to try to find a camp-spot in Joshua Tree NP, in which we luckily found at Jumbo Rocks campground. (Jane says "Jumble" - a better name actually.)  The weather has made a radical change for colder and wintry with snow showers all the way down to the valley floor.  (Snow? In southern California in mid spring when the average temperature is in the 80's?)  We drove around a bit and took in one visitor center and the Oasis of Mara, which is a fault-created natural spring in the desert strung out a couple of miles in the desert.  Earthquakes, over the eons, has ground the subterranean rocks to clay which seals the ground and forces the water to the surface.  In years past, there was a sufficient flow of water to allow irrigation by the Indians, but now the springs are all but dry.  (The name comes from a native word meaning a "place of much grass".)  Lessening of water is attributed to either earthquake activity or the dropping of the water table from all the folks moving to nearby areas.  I know what my theory is…

Joshua trees, named by Mormon immigrants as "praying trees" or "Joshua trees" are a species of yuccas that adapted to the cold of the last glacier age.  When the climate again warmed, they were unable to move back into the warm desert again, so they stayed in the higher elevations.  Evidently a short period of frost and cold has become necessary for them to bloom.  They do not from annual rings, so it is impossible to date them, but some of the largest are believed to be over a thousand years of age.

Driving around today, there were a number of coyotes along the highway and who evidently beg for a living. I notice one with swollen dugs, she obviously has a litter of pups nearby.  There is an abundance of rabbits hereabouts this year, the coyotes seem to be ignoring nature's rabbit bounty in favor of panhandling.  I saw a coyote trot through the campground a few minutes ago ignoring a rabbit not far away - but she carefully checked out the neighbor's camp.

Monday, March 29, 1999
Off to southern California.  Rather than take the shortest route, we went through the south end of Death Valley through Shoshone, Baker, and Twenty Nine Palms traversing the new Mojave National Preserve on the way.  Road was narrow much of the way, and rough, but very little traffic and much more enjoyable than pounding along US395 imbedded in a never-ending string of 18-wheelers.  Impressions: Dry, fairly sparse desert flora, numerous passes and valleys, few birds, no raptors (but quite a few ravens).  Twenty Nine Palms area scuzzyier than I remembered.  Arrived in Banning mid-afternoon where we parked for several days in front of the Emerson's new digs.

Tue and Wed March 30 and 31
Arrived in Banning, CA later afternoon.  Emerson's place at Sun Lakes, a retirement development, is attractive and spacious and comfortable decorated. Especially liked the view onto one of the golf course's ponds in which we saw numerous ducks--ruddys, ring necked, one bufflehead, widgeons, as well as coots and a killdeer.  Jane took us to Big Morengo Wildlife Preserve the following day, about ½ hour's drive from their place.  It's a great bird watching area; unfortunately, it was quite windy much of the time.  This is a large area, originally taken on by TNC but now run jointly with BLM, with several distinct habitats--riparian, field, mesquite.  Would love to return there some day. Wanted to find a CA thrasher but none available.

Spent the following day doing necessary shopping.  Charlie and I even took on the (endless) outlet chain a few miles down Rt. 10, looking for coffee pot and carafe.  Most every store was selling shoes or clothing so we were surprised to locate what we'd gone for!  The wind was terrible and the temp went down into the 30's.

The following day we pulled off the road and watched a park coyote "working" the tourists for quite a while.  He would stand by the side of the road and wait until a car came along then saunter across the road in front of it until it stopped.  If there were no tidbits coming (none while we watched) it would soon loose interest and wander off, only to repeat the performance on the next car.  I wondered what would happen if an old Wyoming sheepherder would come by --  "I ain't gonna stop for any &#@$% ky-yote!!"   We watched for a while, and sure enough a car attempted to convert Wiley into roadkill.  Ol' Wiley just nimbly stepped out of the way when he sensed a car was not stopping.

Friday, April 02, 1999
The wind blew hard all night with the temperature hovering just at freezing.  The radio reported that 9 folks (evidently illegal immigrants) died of hypothermia in the nearby mountains because of the drastic weather and lack of proper clothing.

A side trip to Keys' overlook, a mountaintop overlooking the Coachella Valley, revealed a most unusual smog-less and clear view.  (But by late afternoon the smog could again be seen insidiously creeping over the passes into the desert.

William Keys, and his wife Frances (originally a city person) were resourceful pioneers in these desert mountains.  The Park Service acquired the Desert Queen ranch that they lived in for more than 60 years.  The property was originally acquired in lieu of wages when the mine for which Bill as caretaker went bankrupt.  He added additional acreage when he homesteaded the current ranch site in 1917. 

The locations of the few year-round springs and oases in the desert were a closely guarded secret by the native peoples, and Cottonwood Springs was one.  At the time of early European settlement, there was a considerable flow from this spring - enough to pipe to a mine many miles distant.  However, in recent years the spring has nearly dried up.  At the time of the Sylmar earthquake, the flow again increased a bit, but nothing like days gone by.  The native California fan here palm is quite rare, found only in a few canyons in the deserts of southern California.  The current stand of cottonwood and palm was likely planted by miners and not present when the native peoples occupied the springs.

Soon after leaving the highlands on the way down to Cottonwood Springs, the Joshua trees abruptly cease and the desert flora changes character.  In fact, this is a transition zone from the high Mojave to the lowland Colorado desert.  Near the bottom of a long descent one passes through a very dense, but limited patch of Bigelow cholla.  It is sometimes called "teddy bear" cholla for it fuzzy look, or even "jumping cholla" for its tendency to stick painfully to anyone who is unfortunate enough to brush up against it.  Also, a few miles further, there is a small forest of ocotillo, again limited in size, but they are quite large and dense.

My age is showing as I recall sawing fire wood on one of these rigs using a sawmill blade many years ago

Keyes had a bad back.  He invented this rig to put tension on it to obtain some relief.

California high desert in Joshua Tree National Park

Here, as in much of the dry southwest, over utilization of ground water resources has resulted in a drying of springs, streams, and surface water.  This once rather lush ranch site, lush by desert standards anyway,  is now so dry that these fruit trees are barely hanging on.

Tuesday, April 06, 1999
Wind was ferocious last night.  It blew the hummingbird feeder up onto the roof of the camper and blew the solar panel down - the first time I remember that happening.  In the morning we made the decision to move onward because the forecast was for more wind.  By the time we packed up and were ready to roll, the wind quit and it became a beautiful day.  We left anyway.  Next stop was the Bureau of Land Management's Long-Term Visitor Area (LTVA)  north of Yuma on the California side of the Colorado River.  (A LTVA is a place where the snow-birds collect in the thousands and stay the winter on BLM land for a minimal annual fee, which provides trash service and an RV dumpsite.) We bounced our way around the lake on a rather primitive road to a dispersed area on the shore of Senator Wash Reservoir, which is actually outside the aforementioned LTVA.  The place was trashed enormously, but otherwise might have been a good camping spot.   It was a bit windy in the afternoon, but it died down after sunset. 

Wednesday, April 07, 1999
In the morning, we explored the general area in Jane and Doug's CR-V, which included going northward to the Imperial Wildlife Refuge.  They had not had luck in finding anyone live there to inform them of information they needed when they visited before, but today we found an enthusiastic wildlife officer who told us of his favorite roads in the refuge. In spite of this, the wind's constant blustering forced birds "inside" and we saw very few. We have been seeing very few birds and water birds in this area for some reason - is there something wrong with the water??  We explored southward, skirting  Yuma Proving Grounds, then northward to a rather elusive Mittry Lake wildlife area.  There we did find a number of dispersed camping spots which seem to appeal to all of us more than the Senator Wash site. Decided to move there on the morrow.  Stopped by a tented produce stand which we'd passed the day before; stocked up on bags of fresh stuff at, finally, decent prices. Wonderful fresh asparagus. The wind was blowing so hard that it seemed possible the whole tent might blow away. Showers in the afternoon with wind and cold as yet another weather system sweeps over the desert country. We took our bikes over some of the rocky roads in the immediate area, wind howling around us.  I thought it was going to blow us backward at times!  My hat took off and started to roll -- the wind neatly off-setting its natural tendency to roll into a spiral resulting in a long chase to retrieve the damn thing.

Thursday, April 8 and Friday, April 9
Made the short move to Mittry Lake after exploring the route first.  Mittry Lake is one of the first irrigation projects on the lower Colorado, completed in the early part of the century.  It is actually a whole series of low dams spread across a broad delta.  Much of the lake has been silted in forming a big marsh and wetland rather than an open lake as its name suggests.

Explored the area, mostly by bike, and found few birds, though we did come up with a  new one, the elusive black rail, which was seen by Anne, Jane, and Doug - but not by Chuck.  This area is highly trashed, not quite as bad as Senator Wash, but bad enough to be impossible to make much headway on cleanup. 

There are far too few birds hereabouts considering the richness of the wetlands - notably missing are the flycatchers, warblers, and ducks.  There are very few insects visible, though we're camped in the middle of a marsh in the springtime.  It should be swarming with bugs and insects that would also feed and attract the birds. Looking at the water, I am seeing no invertebrate life at all, no insect larvae or no aquatic fauna at all--it should be crawling with them.  Is this because there is so much agriculture waste going into the anemic flow of the Colorado that is heavily contaminated with organo-cholorides and other agricultural chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides?  Looking into that water you can so see that everything is coated with algae and green slime, stuff that water fauna would happily graze upon.  There are some fish, and fishermen, but I don't believe I would be comfortable dining on a fish dinner from here. 

Speaking of contamination, Annie cooked chicken in the oven and managed to also cook a plastic cutting board!  Our home on wheels was completely toxified and we're lucky that the contamination didn't harm us (we were outside during the cooking).
Something happened to our fridge, possibly during the bone-jarring trip over the washboards from Senator Wash - anyway, it quit.  After waiting to see if it would cure itself (it didn't) I attempted all the other cures that has worked in the past with no results.

A few snow geese that have not departed for the north country yet

Blind Prickly Pear.  Named "blind" as the very fine barbs tends to get into cattle eyes and severly damaging them.

Elephant Tree--a rather rare desert tree

Saturday April 10, 1999
Spent some more time fiddling with the fridge, but all attempts at fixing it has failed.  As a result, we decided to move from Mittry Lake and head into Yuma and get a big ice cooler in an attempt to salvage at least sum of the stuff squirreled away in the fridge.  Also while in Yuma, found a new propane pressure regulator, since that has cured fridge problems in the past. (This time it didn't). Later in the week we'll see if we can get the fridge fixed in Tucson.

After blundering all over Yuma to complete our mission, we headed on down the road to Organ Pipe Cactus NM for a few days. We arrived late in the day, but were able to find a camp spot despite the late hour.  Attended a well-presented evening program on the night sky, spring constellations, and mythology, the final ranger talk for the season.

Sunday, April 11, 1999
We took a morning van tour of Ajo Mountain loop with an interpretive ranger/wildlife naturalist, and learned quite a bit of new things about the Sonoran Desert during this journey.  In the afternoon we walked up Alamo Canyon to the springs only to find them dry.  La Nina has dried up many flowing streams and tinajas (natural rock basins that collect rain water) in all of the desert country.  Not many birds about, but we did manage to find a Mexican black capped gnatcatcher, a rare visitor from the south.  None of our books really agree on how this little varmint should look and sound, but the key identification features were unquestionably present.  Identification took real study!

Monday, April 12, 1999
Up the Puerto Blanco Road in the morning.  Very windy and few birds.  When we got to the Bonita well, an old cattle site that used to have a windmill, it was very dry.  When we were there several years ago, the windmill was still producing water and it was an oasis rich in bird-life.  The Park Service recently made a controversial decision to return the site to its natural state of dry desert and shut down the windmill.  Today, all the trees and large shrubs are dying back, and the thick vegetation is already thinning despite an intervening very wet El Nino year last year. The nearby area across the Mexican border near Sonoyta is supporting a burgeoning population of more than 17,000 people and the aquifer is being rapidly depleted thereby drying many of the flowing springs in the park.  (It seems to me this is an unnatural situation more egregious than that of the previously "manmade" windmill - perhaps that windmill should be left in operation as an island of bird and animal life.) When we reached Quitobaquito Springs we found it still to be a small lake, though I believe the water level is lower than it used to be.  Not many birds here either, but it could be due to the wind.  We did find a kingfisher, unusual for such a dry desert, and we also discovered a MacGillray's warbler, something one would be more likely to find in Montana than here.

...which tend to grow only where there is a spring or water near the surface