Salton Sea

What an awesome day! (for the preview, see rachelsmom's picture)

We visted my cousins near Palm Springs today! Took almost 3 hours to get there. We met them at lunchtime, got the nickel tour of their new beautiful house and headed out to the Salton Sea! It was the perfect day. Not cold, not hot.

The Salton Sea attracts 350 different kinds of birds! (Actually, we were not that impressed with the few we saw...there were supposed to be more in the winter time....but that's besides the point!) It's has a higher salination ppt than the ocean. When there is a drastic change in salination or in temperature, thousands of tiapia fish die and wash ashore. Instead of walking on sand, we were walking on dead fish bones and barnikle shells [crunch, crunch]. Giant white pelicans were all over the place. Lots of seagulls too. A few white eggerts! Didn't see any herons or cranes we were hoping for.

We drove down the road another 30 [40?] miles to the Sony Bono wildlife reserve, where we were promised lots of cranes. Didn't find any cranes, but there were hundreds of white geese flying toward us. They landed in a marsh area. Looked like a crop of geese!

Then we finally decided where the little road on the map was, right before the sun set. Bumped along the rocky salty dirt. The view was sureal! Lots of birds! But hard to see them, as there wasn't much light left. The sky was amazing!

We were in blipper heaven, I tell you.

I really wanted to do a montage of all the birds and relatives, but I just don't have the program to do it with! I'll just have to upload them to fb for my family to check out. (I'm soooo tired now, I really need to sleep!)

I got home last night at 12:50am....shoulda left earlier, but I just didn't want to leave! Visiting with my cousins and aunt & uncle that I hardly ever get to see was just too much fun! The girls played with the four doggies and watched Hannah Montana videos with momsrachel. I don't think they even fought all day!

A big thank you to C & N for hosting and feeding us! And to Alwayswandering for my new gorgeous Indian fabric she just brought back from India last week! And, OH am I so spoiled! She made me homemade chai tea! I didn't even know it could be made like that! Mine only comes in a powder from a can! I can't wait to see them all in July for the big family reunion.

I downloaded to some
here.

Ben & Phil took the train to Legoland with Ben's best friend & dad! They had their own great day!