Slot Canyon- Anza-Borrego State Park, CA- We found the park headquarters and were surprised to find an underground building. It makes sense, I suppose, since it can get to 120 degrees here in the summer and the earth makes great insulation. This park is huge, 600,000 acres and growing!  We took a hike to some pictographs. Petroglyphs, which we've seen before, are images chipped or scratched into the rock. Pictographs use earthen pigments and some form of binder to create drawings in colors on the rocks. We saw only one rock with several drawings on it. The red pigments were quite clear, but it looked like a faded yellow had been used too. We hiked a little further to an area that overlooks an area called Smuggler's Cove and the valley below. The wind is blowing fiercely, and there's nothing in the terrain to get shelter from it. We did a hike through a slot canyon. The whole area is badlands, an area that is barren and eroded into bizarre formations. We couldn't find a clear trail but we did find our way down and into the slot. It was really cool, but it did creep me out with sand and small rocks dropping down on me from the windy ridge above.  We drove out to do another short 1 mile hike to see a rare Elephant Tree. It's a Sonoran desert tree that's at the edge of it's habitat. There were more at one time, but we saw the last one surviving here (they typically grow much further south). We drove out to do another hike to wind caves. We drove up a wash (a dry creek bed that is the road here) through a badlands canyon. We got out to take this hike and the wind kicked up and threw sand and rocks at us hard enough to hurt! We decided that this is a sign and we bailed out on this hike. We drove out to Font's point for an incredibly surreal view of he whole badlands area.

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