Gila Bend, AZ: We thought if we went to the desert in April maybe it wouldn't be so hot, but our June-in-the-desert trait seems really powerful! There's record breaking heat all across the West, all our fault!!

We were up early to get on our way and go caching. There's a pretty good breakfast at this motel, anyway. (Actually, once we were settled in, it was very comfortable.) We were on a gazillion routes back and forth between I-10 exits to try to get to this area. When there, we couldn't look for one cache, though we have a pretty good idea where it is. Then we found a virtual called Vatican One. Once we reached the Traditionalist Catholic church, we understood why. Finally, we tried and tried and found the route to the trail which led to the travel bug cache. There was an etch-a-sketch there, and we traded for the Uncredited Heros one we had.

And so, out of town, toward Banning which was my original stopping plan. Fortunately, for the rest of the trip we have reservations, apart from the last day. The next area is Cabuzon. We found a cache at the outlet center, got another near the casino, and then located the one at the dinosaurs. This is a sprinkler head. Those are pretty obvious in the middle of the desert.

We went into the Brontosaur again, and bought a couple of magnetic dino kits for Veeve and Awex. The lady in there plays Christian music and has a lot of books on dinosaurs and creationism. And so on to Palm Springs.

We couldn't go to a "welcome" cache, because there were tree trimmers there. So we went to one on the "Walk of Thighs", which we've never actually heard of. Someone complained because the hints made it too easy. Just guess my reaction to that! If you don't like the hints, don't read them! Duh.

Then there was a neat one across the street from Liberace's house. These people, no doubt, get tired of gawkers and photographers. I gawked, then went to get my camera and discovered the batteries were dead, so I put in the backups, only to find I hadn't recharged them. There is a total last chance backup set, of non-rechargable batteries, and that's what I finally went with. I finally was able to get a picture of the chandelier lamppost in the front yard.

Then there was a cache at the old racetrack and another on a horse trail at the bottom of a mountain, and then we were out of town to go look at the Salton Sea. We will definitely have to come back to this town.

The Salton Sea was created when a levee broke a hundred years ago. It's neat to see this water, suddenly, in the desert. The beach we went to was all seashell bits, and crunches oddly. We got a letterbox cache (this involves stamps and stamppads, and we only signed the logbook instead.) Next was a virtual at the Salton Sea Superburger. This is where we had a very good lunch. Then we were heading down to highway 8 but instead backtracked to get to the Sonny Bono Wildlife Reserve. (DEFINITELY we will have to return!! This isn't the best time of year for this!) We saw a sandplow along the way.

At the intersection of I-8 and CA-111 is a travel bug inn, where I looked at three TBs but only took one, a blue goose that looks like it should be going to nature reserves. Then we started heading East. There are sand dunes, and a rest area with filthy bathrooms, and finally, at about 5, we crossed what's left of the mighty Colorado and got into Arizona. We could see Mexico about a quarter-mile away along part of the route.

The last time we were in Yuma was our honeymoon, Oct. 7, 1965, when at 7 in the morning, in October, it was 90 degrees! While it was hot today, it wasn't that bad. We were too late to do the river crossing cache, which I'd hoped to see. There are three downtown in Old Town Yuma, which is a pedestrian mall and dead, dead, dead, except for the guy on the cellphone and the pre-gangsters who asked for a dollar. (The high school started in the old jail, so they're the Yuba Criminals, Crims for short, so maybe this kid was just precocious. One of the Old Town caches is in an old jail cell.) We found these, then started south (past the motel we were in thirty-eight years ago.) There was a 4 difficulty cache I wanted to try for the challenge. Well, it was in an olive tree, and I looked at one branch and pulled at it a couple of times, with no luck. Rich looked at some others. We investigated nearby things, and then he went back to the branch and pulled it really hard, and it came loose! It WAS the cache! I was totally chuffed!

I took over the wheel (in fear and trembling of a repeat of yesterday!) We tried to get to one cache, but it looked like a bad .25 mile drive, so we bagged it. Then we went to "Indian," which is INSIDE a cigar store. I really lusted after the dinosaur dominoes, so found three not-as-nice things to leave in trade. Rich had a nice talk with the pretty young girl behind the counter.

Then I drove the 80 or so miles to the motel. It was nice to have them ready for us. They roll up the streets in Gila Bend at 9, but we did have a chance to get something to eat at the A&W before they closed.

So let me get this right, the one kind of person you can't discuss energy policy with is someone who knows something about it?

The big news in Socal is the Mexican cop-killer and no extradition.

Lautenberg (so, he didn't resign after 6 months!) decided to talk about "chicken hawks." What did HE do in the war, anyway? Why is Viet Nam important now, but not when Clinton was running?

Grumble, the Lakers won. It's not enough for the Kings to win, the Lakers must lose.

Highpoint: Liberace's house/the 4.5 cache

Lowpoint: Filthy toilets.