Places, Earth Coachella Valley, 2022

Coachella Valley, 2022

Day One, Tanks and Towers

I left home early for the first time. For the second time in two months, my wife decided to stay home and spend a boring weekend with her dogs and cat instead of an exciting trip with me, so it was just my car and me. I backed my 20 year old station wagon past my 5 year old Mustang and headed east on I-210. The first stop was Wildwood Rest Area on I-10 just before entering Riverside County. I was almost to my first stop when I got a transaxle warning light. I stopped at Cactus City Rest Area to check the car and when I resumed,

Wildwood Rest Area.

the light was off. I had a similar situation two months ago with a different light, so I wonder if the problem is the 20 year old computer in the car.

General Patton Memorial Museum.

Three and a half hours after leaving home, I arrived at my first destination, General Patton Memorial Museum in Chiriaco Summit. We had visited about four years ago, just after they had finished a gallery space expansion, but before any exhibits had been installed. The original wing had the same exhibits, but rearranged a little. The new wing had exhibits more directed to Patton, but also general exhibits, uniforms, and a theater. Outside, the Matzner Tank Pavilion and Tank Yard were a little changed, but they had made a great

improvement in labeling. There is a tank with the turret removed so you can go inside and a turret with a cut away section to see inside. Being part of a tank crew was not a fun job. I enjoyed my visit and headed back to Indio by Noon.

It took a little searching, but finally I found my second stop, the Coachella Valley History Museum. I had long heard of this museum and it's submarine. There are indoor and outdoor exhibits and I saw many unusual exhibits. There are objects similar to other similar museums, but I enjoyed seeing the collection of “automatic” washing machines and a temporary exhibit on colorful art and pottery. I enjoyed seeing the submarine, the schoolhouse, and the Date Museum. By the way, the submarine is a small sleeping hut

Art exhibit at Coachella Valley History Museum.

that once had water soaked burlap in the roof. The evaporating water cooled the hut which was under water, thus the play on words. The tallest exhibit is the water tower that once stood at a farm. Beside the Date Museum is a small collection of several varieties of Date Palms. (82616 Miles Ave, Indio, CA 92201) From here I followed a suggestion to visit Shields Date Gardens. Besides a store with all sorts of things to purchase including many types of dates, stuffed dates, gift boxes of dates, and the very popular varieties of date shakes. Behind is a large patio for enjoying the shakes. Behind that is a large garden of date palms, hibiscus, other flowers and exotic plants, and sculptures portraying the life of Christ. I was half way through before I realized they were a time line and I was goingbackwards from post-crucifixion to birth. Oh well, next time go counter-clockwise. I bought two small packages of dates and found my hotel. (80225 US Hwy 111, Indio, CA 92201)

Shields Date Gardens.

A few times I passed the fairgrounds with the “fair” in progress this weekend. Sadly, because of Covid, the fair has been reduced to a carnival with rides and food, but no real fair with exhibits and animals. It made me more frustrated that we canceled two years ago, a month before Covid became a concern. That was probably the last real Riverside County Fair and Date Festival. (82-503 CA-111, Indio, CA 92201) I checked into my hotel a bit before 4 and

Riverside Fairgrounds.

unloaded. I attended Saturday evening Mass (I prefer Sunday morning) so I could get an earlier start tomorrow. I settled in for the night, ate, and tried to figure out all my camera and electronic stuff. While taking on the phone with my wife, my phone battery ran down for the first time and I couldn’t find my charger, so I struggled to find alternative ways to charge it. The computer went to sleep about the same time I did and stopped charging the phone but I finally got it charged just before I started out the next morning.

Day Two, Sea or Lake

I got up early and leisurely got ready, loaded the car for the day, and headed out a little before 9:00. It took only about 45 minutes to reach Bombay Beach, a former tourist town playing off the water, but now on hard times. I climbed stairs to the top of a dike not likely to see the sea again and took a few photos of the distant Salton Sea. Shortly after I crossed into Imperial County, stopped a minute at Imperial Wildlife Area Wister Unit. Two years ago a woman there had said if I stopped she

Bombay Beach on the northeast shore of Salton Sea.

could better direct me to the mud pots, but after two years of Covid, no one answered the phone when I called. I passed the Border Patrol for northbound vehicles and continued south.

This retired packing plant in Niland needs some loving restoration.

I stopped for gas in Niland and then turned east on Main Street. On the way to my next destination I stopped to photograph an abandoned packing plant from a time when there was more agriculture in the area. It sits at one corner of a quiet six-way intersection and the two sides that faced the streets were detailed with colonnades and sculptured details. The building was clearly constructed at a time when people took more pride in industrial buildings. The back was more industrial, but I photographed that too and continued on my way.

Salvation Mountain, a national treasure.

I followed a road labeled as bad, but I've driven worse. After about ten minutes I could see a bright speck on the side of a brown hill in the distance. A short while later I pull to the side of the road at Salvation Mountain, built almost single handedly by Leonard Knight. I had visited several years before when Leonard was still alive. Now that he is gone, his creation is deteriorating. Large areas were closed off and other areas should be. This folk art masterpiece should be preserved, but isn't. I spent about an hour there, looking around

and talking to other people concerned for its state of repair. (In Niland, turn east on Main Street and follow it to Salvation.)

Just south of Niland is the only stable patch of mud pots, AKA mud volcanoes, in the area. The area around this section of the southeast shore of Salton Sea is active in geothermal energy. Several geothermal power plants operate turning natural underground hot water into steam and electricity. This same underground hot water powers the mud pots. Although there are several in the area, they move around, stop, and new ones begin, but only the ones at Schrimpf and Davis Roads have been bubbling in the same place for several years. The site is posted as "no

There are many mud volcanos in the area, but this is the easiest to find.

trespassing" so of course no one actually enters the site. I photographed the site with a geothermal power plant behind emitting a column of steam.

I continued south to Brawley where I caught Highway 78 west and started north along the west side of Salton Sea. When Highway 78 turned west, so did I, eventually arriving in Borego Springs, an island community within Anza Borego State Park, the largest state park in California. On the way into Borrego Springs I passed several metal animal statues that dot the desert on the north and south sides of town. About one hundred of these sculptures by Ricardo Breceda cover 1,500 acres of desert. I had seen the ones on the south side of town a few
Ricardo Breceda created these metal sculptures in the desert around Borrego Springs.	years ago so I continued into town. I stopped a minute at the Visitor Center and continued north to find more examples of the metal wildlife. While we had seen the sculptures on the south side of town four years ago, it wasn't until later that I learned the more unusual sculptures were on the north side, so here I was to see them. There are several mastodons, horses, camels, turtles, a family of wild pigs, a dinosaur, a scorpion attacking a grass hopper, and a very impressive dragon with several curves, the head on
one side of the road and the tail on the other. At the furthest north was a padre, a prospector with his mule, and a jeep stuck on rocks. You need to get up close to see the detail. From here I continued east. As Highway S22 descended into the basin, there was a scenic canyon to the south. At Salton City I turned north arriving back at my hotel a little after dark. I worked on my photos the rest of the evening.

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