The solar guy was out today, making a house call in Brawley. Someone else in his encampment answered the door and gave us some information, but we were uninterested in sticking around until he got back at 4:30, so we pulled up stakes and left Slab City this morning.

Today we drove through the southern Imperial valley and crossed the Imperial Sand Dunes recreaction area at Glamis. The dunes, I must say, were quite impressive. The Glamis area is the subject of much heated debate between environmentalists and off-road recreation users, and the BLM is caught in the middle. We were actually thankful to be driving through mid-week -- I understand the area gets quite crowded on the weekends (even though it is miles from anywhere). If you ever wondered where all the "toy haulers" are heading, this is the place. It's pretty much impossible to come here for a weekend without some kind of fully self-contained rig.

We then drove south along the valley formed by the dunes and the southern end of the Chocolate Mountains and headed east on I-8. After a brief fuel stop in Yuma (fuel is a good $0.20 less in AZ) we re-crossed the Colorado, or what's left of it this far south, turned right at Winterhaven, and headed up the Colorado delta to Imperial Dam.

Tonight we are camped at at BLM developed site next to the Senator Wash reservoir (map). All along the route here we passed BLM "long term visitor areas" (LTVA's) that are mostly empty now, the termperatures here having climbed into the high 90's. In the winter, this area is blanketed with "snowbirds."

Tomorrow we will cross into Arizona again, over Imperial Dam, and pick up US95 north into Quartzsite.