I've written before about the many facets of California and its amazing compartmentalization. In the Coachella Valley is the department of leisure and wealth: golf, tennis, shopping, plastic surgeons, beautiful homes, and gorgeous landscaping. All serviced by Mexican or Native Americans of course, those that Drumpf plans to kick out of the country. But that's a different story; this post is about some other aspects of this corner of Southern Cal.
Eight o'clock this morning (some of you know this is not my best time of day) saw us up and out and heading up Tahquitz Canyon. It's unusually hot his week for this time of year, so it had to be that early or not at all. Today's temperature hit 36C and yes, it's a "dry heat" but it's still 36C, or 97F if you're on that scale. Tahquitz Canyon is gorgeous and thankfully controlled by the Tahquitz Nation. We met a woman of Mexican/Native heritage on the trail who said the canyon was closed for about 30 years as the result of squatters through the 60s and 70s who trashed the place with garbage, human waste, and graffiti. Sadly, too believable. She was also very embarrassed about Drumpf being the best the GOP could offer, wondering what would happen next and trying to mobilize her connections. The trail is only 2 miles round trip but between Jim's bum ankle and my dodgy oxygen supply we opted not to take the guided walk so we could bail out if we needed to. Not necessary and we were both just fine despite lots of stairs and a 350ft elevation change. Thanks to the gym and Tai Chi, I'm in the best shape I've been for years.
Not wanting to spend the rest of the day indoors to avoid the heat, I convinced Jim we should go to the Salton Sea, the largest lake in California. The short story is that from 1905-07, by error, the Colorado River was diverted to the Salton Sink and resulted in an inland sea, larger and deader than the Dead Sea. People expected it to dry up but it didn't because of agricultural run-off and for, a period in the 50s/60s, there was a Salton Riviera explosion of resorts and recreational development. We didn't know much in that era about "agricultural run-off" in which DDT and fertilizer were components of the drainage. The sea is still vast at 50 km long and 24 km wide, but it smells foul (really awful!), nothing can live in it, the beach 'sand' is made of fish bones from the big kill-offs, and the area is derelict. Despite admonitions to avoid it if you have respiratory issues, we were very glad to have seen it, an image of post-apocalyptic possibility and a quick lesson in human intervention gone very wrong. There are serious air quality issues and if the wind gets up it threatens the posh life to the west.
On the way back to our nest in Palm Springs, we stopped in at the Coachella Valley Brewing Company to ease back into our life of privilege...temporary as it may be.
