March 8, 2008

Imperial Dunes / Glamis: I took a Saturday morning detour North once inside California – so I could check out the planet of Tattoine – or at least the setting used for Star Wars and Lawrence of Arabia. The Imperial Dunes Recreational Area is a portion of the Algodones Dunes – a fluffy white sand dune that is 45 miles long by 6 miles wide. There were hundreds of RV’s and thousands of people on motorcross bikes, atvs, souped-up golf carts, and dune buggys, driving like maniacs over the contours of the dunes.

I got to Caleb’s house early afternoon, just in time to go for brunch with him and his lady Dana. She was getting ready for a big pharmacology exam so she couldn’t hang out. In an effort to take advantage of the beautiful weather and be active, Caleb and I visited the Torrey Pines State Reserve along the coast, ‘home of our nation’s rarest pine tree – pinus torreyana.’ It is a well maintained and popular site that unfortunately closes at 6pm – we arrived shortly before 5. We still had plenty of time to hike a series of trails that work down from the cliffs to the beach, and back. Which was just a preview of later that night when Caleb, his buddy Daragh, and I couldn’t get a cab back from the Pink Elephant and ended up walking about three miles home.

Pics: a) boys and their toys; b) sand everywhere; c) desert in bloom amid the machines; d) they aren’t windmills, they are propellers that keep the earth rotating; e) brunch; f) guys having a photo at the beach – and this time we aren’t the clowns in the back waving too.

Info-Mashun:
Today Miles: 208; Trip Miles: 10,881
Starting Point: Yuma, AZ; Ending Point: San Diego, CA
Route: 8W, Ted Kipf RdNW, 78W, 86S, 8W
Price of 87Octane Gas – Yuma, AZ: $3.16/gal
Price of 110Octane Racing Fuel: $5.89/gal
Imperial, CA: -59ft
Tecate Divide: 4,140ft
San Diego, CA: 72ft
Distance from Imperial to San Diego: 118mi
Word of the day: Kizmet
WOTD usage: 1