Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center — Attraction in Calipatria

I had to look twice and then again to make sure I was reading the signs right that kept popping up on a highway running parallel to death and directly into something much worse.

"SONNY BONO'S SALTON SEA... " I said to myself frantically trying to figure out a way to roll up the electric window after blowing its fuze because I could taste the sulfur outside start to come in.

"What a strange place to attach your name to. " I thought, as an erie feeling of a time that wasn’t anymore swept through my idea of what kind of place this road was leading us to.

A once hot and heck of a good time was sure to be had during the family vacation for two weeks at the Salton Sea. At least that's what they used to say, until the fish started dying. Some say the water is full of poison out from under the earth where this man made once paradise in the dessert now barely serves as a suitable mirage before checking out. Others subscribe to the belief this is all the ignorant doings of Mexican waste management streamlining an ocean of Hepatitis into our sea to capitalize on the inevitable tourism bucks it's absence would surely have brought.

All of this is part of the reason I'm asking myself the question :

"Sony Bono?... I got you ba--"

"BABE! THERE IT IS! " Exclaimed my girlfriend with fists gripped under knuckles white gripping that Hyundai steering wheel and turning into a gravel road.

Sonny Bono's nature preserve was down a little further on the road and the last thing I drug us all the way out here to see. Obsidian buette and the active volcanos out in the heart of the sulfuric boggy air is why the next two hours were spent exploring just that and building up quite the sweat and thirst to go with it.

Lucky for us once we made it back to the road and got moving at a respectable MPH again an old friend thought it decent to say hello one more time:

SONNY BONO'S SALTON SEA... NEXT STOP

To make a rediciloiusy long review a little shorter I'll just sum it up by telling you we stopped at his little place in the middle of nowhere past active volcanos and I wasn’t surprised.

Mr. Bono had all the stuff our sweaty body's and thirsty mouths could ever want and the cost was nothing more then having the common sense to know how to use the hose well enough to make it shoot a little water back in return.

You got me babe!

Thanks for the hose water, completely random walkway to most pointless telescopes in World and no visitors so I could pee off the random walkway next to the most pointless telescopes ever.

I got you babe! Or at least i...

I don't know what this guy below is talking about. Clearly his brain was a little fried from the heat.

This place is critical to the survival of the migratory birds that fly through into Mexico and further south. Come in the winter time and you will see hundreds of thousands if not millions of birds flying south a day! It is beautiful.

The preserve plants fields of alfalfa and other grains so the geese migrating have a place to eat. The Salton Sea is pretty much the only water for migrating birds to stop by on this leg of the route from the artic all the way to Mexico and South America. If he read the informative signs and stopped at the visitors center he could of learned that 90% of all North American bird species can be found right at the reserve or in the surrounding valley.

And for other people complaining about flies?! Are you kidding? Bird eat flies without them no food. Go back inside your little city bubble until you grow up and realize wherever there is water there are insects, and where there are insects there are lizards, birds and other creatures to eat the insects. Have you ever learned about ecosystems or the food web?

And as for all the dead fish you will find on the coastline of the sea. That is not due to toxic water it is because there are too many damn fish! This water is cleaner and safer than most lakes in the state. The dead fish are a good sign of an extremely healthy population some would say too healthy in the Sea. Do your homework and stay away from the Sea if you cannot enjoy nature and wildlife and know the reasons this place is around and why it is so critical to 90% of N. American...

Unfortunately, this place should be condemned. The swarms of flies that greet you at the entrance should be a sign that things aren't quite right. Whatever you do, don't roll your windows down!! The flies will swarm into your car and attack anything that resembles food or liquid. We made this mistake and then had to leave the windows down as we drove away from the place, for miles until the flies finally flew out or were sucked out the windows. We also made the mistake of walking out onto the sand area surrounding this toxic cesspool. The bones of thousands of dead fish crunched under our shoes as we approached the horrid, stinking banks, where we found a rotting pelican carcass floating just inches from shore. The smell of death wafted heavily in the air as we retreated back to our car, eager to leave the sights and smells behind us. We were dumbfounded at the seemingly brand-new looking picnic facilities dotting the road through the "Refuge." We could not imagine who would entertain the idea of having a picnic lunch in these surroundings. It's a shame what's become of this place, but certainly needs to be redesignated as a toxic waste site, not a "National Wildlife Refuge," as nothing but bacteria...