El Centro & The Salton Sea

Slideshow of All Today's Images

Today, we took a 2 hour drive down to El Centro, CA which is about as close to Mexico as we are going to get - it’s only 10 miles from the border. The highway to El Centro winds by a very interesting body of water – the Salton Sea.

From El Centro, CA & The Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is an inland saline lake in the Sonoran Desert and is located about halfway between Palm Springs and El Centro. The Sea was formed between 1905 and 1907 when the Colorado River burst through poorly built irrigation controls south of Yuma, Arizona. Almost the entire flow of the river filled the Salton Basin for more than a year, flooding communities, farms and the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Continued filling of the Salton Sink was finally stopped in 1907, when a line of protective levees was built by boxcars dumping boulders into the breach from Southern Pacific tracks.

Currently 35 miles long by 15 miles wide, the Salton Sea can be as long as 40 miles by almost 20 miles in particularly wet years. It has an average depth of 29.9 feet and, at its deepest, is 51 feet. It contains 7.3 million acre feet of water and evaporates 1.3 million acre feet each year. The Sea is currently 228 feet below sea level. Interestingly, the bed of the Salton Sea is only five feet higher than the lowest spot in Death Valley.

The Imperial Valley which borders the Salton Sea is one of the main agricultural areas of California. It is the leading producer of dates in the world and this is evidenced by the great number of Date Palm farms along the highway. There are also miles and miles of orange, lemon and other citrus fruit groves.

Between the green farms and palm trees are large areas of rugged desert – as plain and barren as any we have seen in the southwest.

From El Centro, CA & The Salton Sea

When we arrived in El Centro, Paulette and I were both surprised to find that the city was quite a bit bigger than we had expected it to be. It was quite spread out, had a definite Mexican feel to it, but had all of the shopping and stores found in larger locales - i.e. Costco, Walmart SuperCenter, Staples, Best Buy and a huge new shopping center - the Imperial Plaza. The Plaza's main stores were Macy's, Dilliards, JC Penney, Sears, Ross', Michaels and many others. Needless to say, we made a one hour stop there so Paulette could check out some of the stores.

We also took a look at the Desert Trails RV Park in El Centro where Tom and Donna had stayed for a month just before Christmas last year. It's a very nice park with a golf course in the middle and a beautiful swimming pool and spa area. The park is quite large and looked to be very full. Tom and Donna liked it so much they plan to spend six months there next winter.

After a quick bite to eat in El Centro, we made the two hour drive back to Desert Hot Springs just in time to take Mo and Molly for a walk(they came with us of course) and then get ready for dinner and I guess watching the Grammy's on TV tonight.