Only natural oasis in the valley

Went on an early morning bird watching walk at the Coachella Nature Preserve. Surprisingly there were very few birds or mammals out today in the valley's only natural spring fed oasis. I did score on a bird of prey I thought might be difficult to see unless I went out at night..Great Horned Owl
 
                                First up is a Black Phoebe flycatcher who stayed near the oasis while skimming back and forth across the water.

The oasis had nearly 200 of the Washingtonia palms that I found out have sharp thorny branches until they are 20 or more feet tall, then there is no need for the thorns so new branches are without.

This Great Horned Owl was spied sitting within the  branches of three palm trees. Because he was so deep in the branches it was a dark shot lightened up a little with Picasa.

Sparrow or Finch?

                                     I'm think finch, but I really am just please because I finally got a photo of a bird that wasn't too far away or blurred.

Palm Springs 2

                                                Some of the thousands of wind generators.

Even wind generators have "graveyards".

                                                  Reminiscent of our time in Las Vegas, this wanna be mansion
of about 5000 sq ft. looks like it has sat in this condition for three or four years.

This poor half built home on a hillside lot in a subdivision

of lots for sale at $900,000 is the only one with

a foundation.

Coachella Valley Preserve

             Coachella Valley Preserve is a great place to spend a few hours walking among the only native palms in the western United States,Washingtonia filifera, that occur in 29 Palms and Coachella Valley. Here on Thousand Palm Rd (no I didn't count them) the preserve sits right on top of the San Andreas fault which pushes water up to the surface which in turn feeds the palms and other wildlife.

Not the best picture of a Gambel's Quail but I could not get them to sit still.

The beautiful natural palm skirts hide many of the desert creatures including mice, rats, owl and other birds of prey. Nearly all landscape palms have their skirts removed but these with skirts are great but highly flammable. 

Transmission lines

This photo is for my younger brother who is into electrical lines and plants. Why this is unusual, at least to me, is because here on Dillon Rd. three large transmission lines merge and follow a single route. Guess the land they are on gave 'em a discount.

Indio Date Garden

                           I first remember coming here in the '60's with either my parents or nana. Great place for a date shake and lunch.

        Some of the date tree's behind Shields Shop. All the tree's had little ladders on the upper part for workers to gather fruit.

Desert Hot Springs, Ca.

                  Moved here on February 1st for one month, then will slowly move up the coast of California. Desert hot Springs was "the" happening place in the 1940's 50, and 60's, where any celebrity worth their salt would come out to the mineral hot pools for a soak. Now the town might have seen it's best days behind it but I still love the rustic flavor. Staying at Sam's Family Spa with its large pool, three mineral hot pools, sauna and jacuzzi. One reason time may of forgotten this town is because everyone seemed to move down the valley to Palm Spring, much less windy.

    These 'bad boy" wind generators down the street are here for a reason...all ten thousand of  'em

                                                                     It's either this .....or

                                                                           this....ha ha

The park is a collection of 5th wheels, motorhomes and one section that has older park model homes.

Poston, AZ 1942-46 Japanese internment camp

People with 1/16 or more of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned for 3 1/2 years because of American war hysteria. People were only allowed to take whatever they could carry, which included a bedroll. This camp is on a American Indian Reservation and the native Indians refused the initial government request to put the camp on their land...but the government ignored the Indians wishes that another people be forced from their land and home by the U.S.

This memorial was built by the descendants of the camp and unfortunately is probably the nicest part of Poston.

Cibola National Wildlife Refuge

What a great stop this was. The Cibola Refuge is twenty or so miles south of Blythe in Arizona.

The access to Cibola from Blythe is across a bridge that neither California nor Arizona would build for the community. So the community built their own "Farmers Cibola Bridge" ( which has plenty of qualifications if you happen to use it).

We ended up seeing plenty of  Vermilion Flycatchers, Gambel's Quail, Coots, American Kestrels  and the Sandhill Cranes below.

Some "Great Egret's".

Our favorite of course...a bird of prey. The Burrowing Owl!

The refuge builds the owls a 4 foot deep home so the coyotes can't dig them out.

Castle dome with family.

     Ran down to Castle Dome mining town with my wife,, brother and sister-in-law. Jack, has always been the gambler in the family, he took on, one-eyed Pete, double jacks Louie and  aces Wild Willy
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Is MY brothers gun really that small!

Mexican border

Mexican border at Lukeville, Az which is the town (gas station, bar and restaurant) at the border that leads to Rocky Point, MX.

Warren Buffett often says he won the parent lottery by being born on the right side of the border and to the right mom and dad.

                                                                Lukeville welcome sign.

Our hard working border patrol.

                                           

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

    Organ Pipe is a national monument that borders Mexico. It is a beautiful desert landscape with multiple types of cactus.

The organ cactus has many arms and much lower to the ground than the saguaro cactus.

                                     

Ajo, Arizona....The copper mine!

         

    Ajo is Spanish for garlic. No one really knows why it was named that, but it was and is only 30 miles from the Mexican border. Native Americans and the Spanish first used the wealth of minerals in the area long before white men did.

                                   It was strange seeing an old military jet setting on a dirt road

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Ajo is only 190 miles from Blythe and we are glad we made the trip because it's not a place we'd like to winter in the future.

                        Ajo has a wonderful Spanish courtyard with a great deli in the middle of it.

New Cornelia, an open pit copper mine, closed in 1987.

            The New Cornelia mine museum was in a church that is beautiful in the Spanish style architecture. We had Jose as a personal tour guide who explained the whole process of copper from ground to ingot. Jose spent 40 minutes tell us of his 27 years in the mine and his father who preceded him in the 1920's. Jose lost his job in a labor dispute in 1984 shortly before the mine closed.

          Behind Donna is a sluice pipe that crosses the highway. The importance of this as Jose told us is that when the mine closed Freeport torn down all the plants, otherwise they would be taxed, working or not, but left the R&R and this pipe over the road so someday when the reopen the mine they won't have to appeal to the state to bridge the road in the future.

Gary Field

         There was another airfield in Blythe, Gary Field, near the present-day golf course, which had a private pilot training school known as the Morton Air Academy. The school was contracted by the Army Air Corps early in the war to give primary training to Air Corps cadets. Gary Field had a total of three auxiliary airfields during World War II. (info borrowed from a web site)

I'm not sure who owns the field but it has been boarded and fenced for the last 50 years.

Typical of the decay of the buildings

Another borrowed aerial photo of Gary Field.

Blythe Intake

           Also referred as The Palo Verda Diversion Dam was first proposed and built in 1877 for water used in agriculture and consumption downstream.

The small lake that backs up behind the diversion dam

         I borrowed another image from the Department of Reclamation (please don't tell SOPA) so you can get more of an aerial view of the dam.

Stacking hay bales.

           Donna and I love the fact that we both find interest with day touring in the car. We constantly try to guess at what this crop is or that one. If Donna has said it once, she has said it 500 time "I wish the farmers would put a sign up telling everyone what crop is growing now". Believe it or not we sat for 20 minutes watching this guy stack bales with his machine.

                If a bale was laying on it's side, the operator would manipulate the catcher up front in order to roll the bale over to its side so it could be picked up by the machine.

The American Kestrel

              The American Kestrel, commonly called a sparrow hawk, is North America's smallest falcon.

                 This is really only our second "bird of prey" since beginning the hobby. It's very exciting to view, look up in the bird manual and be able to positively identify the species. I'm sure in the past we have seen this bird many times, but not knowing what we were looking at and knowing what we are looking at makes a huge difference.

Don't go to Midland...It's gone!

            This is the name of a book authored in 1970 by Charles Hillinger. At the time, Hillinger notes that all but 48 houses of the town were left standing when the U.S. Gypsum plant closed in 1966 after 40 years. The company torn down the community center, school, plant and most of the houses.The last 22 standing burnt to the ground in 1973.

Midland is now a ghost town...without much of a town.

Someone set up a chair and full beer on the foundation the U.S. Gypsum plant just for Donna to sit and view the beautiful landscape.

Hey!!! Where the hell is the ACLU?