SALTON SEA ~ September 22, 2007

After leaving the dunes, we continued west on Hwy. 78 to Brawley,

quite a nice looking town actually. From there we went north on 111
along the eastern shore of the Salton Sea.

We always see the Salton Sea on the map and finally took the time to drive by it.

We were thinking of camping there but most of the beaches were "closed for the season."
The whole place seemed rather abandoned and it smelled funny besides.
I thought it would be a lot better than that, but I guess it can't compare to the ocean.

So we headed north to Indio and then west over the San Jacinto Mountains. The sun was setting as we went up the switchbacks and hairpin turns on Hwy. 74. (At least they have guardrails!) We were surprised at all the traffic. We thought we'd find a place to camp up on the mountain, but primitive camping spots weren't to be found like they are in Arizona. We ended up paying $10 to stay in the Oak Grove Campground in the Cleveland National Forest. I had thought we'd go through Julian, but driving around the mountains in the dark we ended up somewhere completely different.

Interestingly, the bubonic plague still exists in Arizona, Colorado, and California. So if you don't want to get the "black death," it's best to avoid contact with wild animals like rodents and squirrels, and stay away from prairie dog burrows. No human cases of the disease have been reported since 1996 (2 of the 5 were fatal), but people and their pets can become infected if they are bitten by infected fleas from wild animals and pets that are allowed to roam outdoors.