Half The Adventure

Yesterday’s trip out to the Salton Sea region was quite eventful.

Rather than just doing a simple lap around the sea, this time I was going to certain specific points of geological interest. This meant getting off the main road and onto some really tiny ones.

The area I needed to go into was farm country, so what I was driving on were basically unpaved access roads designed to let the farmers have access to their fields.

On roads like that, you generally go pretty slow because they’re rough and you’re kicking up a ton of dust and pebbles.

It’s interesting when two drivers meet coming in opposite directions, because you’ll have to drive in his dust wake and he’ll have to drive in your dust wake. You approach each other carefully, too, because the roads are so thin.

Almost nobody who isn’t a farmer is out on these roads, so if you happen to be wearing a cowboy hat and driving a pickup then you get a friendly wave of recognition as a member of the local community as you pass the other driver–even if you happen to be a visiting apologist who’s here for the geothermal anomalies.

These roads are so deserted that some of them are one lane. In fact, some of them are one lane MUD PATHS.

What’s more, some of them (or parts of them) DON’T EVEN EXIST.

Y’see, I discovered that what the roads actually ARE and what the maps SAY THEY ARE ain’t quite the same.

It seems that a planning commission or somebody laid out a nice square grid of roads to allow access the fields, but they didn’t take into account the canals and such that were already there. As a result, when the builders tried to impose the grid over the existing area, they hit some problems–like a street supposed to go over a canal where there ain’t no bridge for it.

As a result, the locals took some . . . uh . . . liberties with the way the roads were supposed to be laid out. After all, they knew where the canals and things were and these roads are so little used that anybody who could be expected to be using them would know how to get where they’re going.

There wasn’t even any need to . . . um . . . tell the planning commission about the exceptions that were made. So the maps got made as if the original grid exists.

That’s all fine until a visiting apologist shows up to see the local geothermal anomalies. . . .

For example, at one point my GPS navigator–Betsy–told me to turn left into this canebrake in order to follow part of a road that doesn’t exist.

If I’d crashed through the canebrake in a fit of recklessness, I’d have been dumped in a canal for my trouble.

Other times, the GPS would misidentify certain roads.

Y’see, there’s about 20 meters (65 feet) of imprecision built in to the GPS system.

This means that it’s possible for you to turn onto one road (or dirt path) that’s within 65 feet of where you’re supposed to be and the GPS navigator will think you’re on a road that you’re not.

This happend to me–TWICE!

It happened first because Betsy told me to turn onto a road segment that wasn’t there, so I backed up and took the only obvious road.

Because of the GPS sattelites’ imprecision, Betsy then thought that THIS (left) was Severe Rd.

I was certainly prepared ot agree that it was aptly named, what with the branches of cane whipping my windshield and what with no pavement, an overgrown middle, and no room to get off to one side if you meet anyone.

But it turned out that it wasn’t Severe Rd at all. It was an access path to some fields that runs parallel to where Severe Rd. is SUPPOSED TO BE–but isn’t because there’s a canal there instead. I later got on the real Severe Rd. (the part that exists) and eventually got where I was going.

Later I was trying to turn onto another road–which was unmarked and hidden between brush so that it was impossible to see if you went by too fast–and I ended up on THIS (left) road.

I thought, "Oh boy. Another one-lane mud path. Hope I don’t meet anyone coming the other way or one of us will have to back up for a LONG, LONG way."

Well, I went down the road a piece and eventually came to the conclusion that something was very, VERY wrong.

Why’s that?

Well, because THIS (below) was the sight that greeted me:

That is NOT foreshortening as the road goes off into the distance.

Notice that, even in this picture, the road is ALREADY NARROWER THAN THE HOOD OF MY PICKUP.

And it quickly gets narrower still!

Yet I was supposed to drive for another mile.

*IF* I was on the right road. Turnes out that I wasn’t. I was on an incomplete access path that ran parallel to the real road.

Once again, GPS imprecision was to blame.

As I backed out–slowly and carefully and slipping and sliding on the mud and constantly readjusting so I didn’t get one of my rear wheels off the (elevated) road surface–FOR HALF A MILE!–I discovered what this access road gives access to (below):
It’s a couple of duck blinds with a whole bunch of decoys floating in the water to attract ducks.

There were also a bunch of spent shotgun shells embedded in the mud of the road surface.

So I’d discovered the favorite spot of a couple of hunters.

Hunting (like fishing) is a big deal at the Salton Sea–as much as anything is a big deal out there these days. (The giant radioactive snail monsters seem to have driven almost everyone off.)

I must say that I had more trouble getting where I was going this time than I’ve ever had before. Normally the roads I go on aren’t so poorly-marked, close together, and non-existant. Up till now, Betsy has been nigh on to infallible, but she did her best under the circumstances, what with the GPS imprecision and the erroneous planning commission maps.

And eventually I got where I was going: Obsidian Butte, the mud volcanoes, and the mudpots.

MORE LATER.