Saturday, January 1, 2011

Diamond Valley Lake

December 27, 2010

On Wednesday it was a beautiful day, so we decided to go for a little sightseeing. First we went to the Winchester Cheese Factory.  All it makes is Gouda Cheese, but it is excellent. The owner came over from Holland and makes it like the old country. We bought 2 varieties. SO good on crackers. YUMM

Next we went to the Diamond Valley Lake Reservoir. It is the largest fresh water reservoir in Southern California. It is 4 1/2 miles long and 2 miles wide. It covers 4500 acres and holds 260 billion gallons of water. It is huge. They also stock it with fish, but your body can't touch the water. This lake can deliver water to all of Southern California.

When they were digging out the lake, they found thousands of fossils and bones from the Ice Age.

 This is the head of Zena, a 16,000 year old mammoth who had not reached full adult size.  Isn't it huge!  Elephants are the descendants of mammoths.

This is the head of Max, the largest mastodon found in the US.  They are a little smaller than mammoths, but still are big. Look at how big the head is compared to Denny.

The dam on the left is the northern boundary of the reservoir.


The mountain on the left is Mt. San Jacinto. It is 10,533'  high. You can see by the white lines how low the reservoir

The dam is 2000' wide and 280' high. It is the western end of the reservoir and its deepest point. As you can see by the sky, it was a beautiful day.

It is amazing how fast it warms up here. It can be 34 degrees when we get up, but in just a few hours, it is over 50 and climbing. Most of our days now are between 60 and 65 degrees. One day it was 70. I know you are jealous.

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