San Diego

Leaving Imperial Dam heading west on I-8 takes you through familiar looking desert for a while, BUT THEN things change.  Suddenly there are sand dunes--big sand dunes.  Now, I had always expected to find sand in a desert, but so far most of the deserts we had visited had been more gravel and rocks than sand.  But now there was LOTS of sand.  

And a canal full of water, the All American Canal, used to irrigate MANY acres of vegetables and hay.

Well the sand dunes don't last all the way to San Diego. There are mountains, too.






After traversing it all we pulled into our camp site in El Cajon, CA.  We only planned to stay 3 nights with a full day being devoted to experiencing the world famous San Diego Zoo. The second full day was to rest after the Zoo ;-)

I really can't think of words to describe all the animals and plants we saw that day, so the rest of this post will simply show some of what we saw. 

Darlene & me with "Aslan?" 

17 feet tall

A little family grooming

Momma & baby

Smaller mommy & baby

A very muddy polar bear

I didn't get his name

I 

Largest bird on  the planet

What??!!

California Condor

After a short trip north, we are spending time with my cousin in Yucca Valley, CA