Moving Forward

This weekend the Imperial Valley Desert Museum held its Annual Member Meeting. This was my second meeting since I have been here. This was a very different meeting from the one last year. Last year I presented on our plans to open the museum. This year I talked about our first year of being open.

We hired staff last January. We installed the conservation lab in January. We held our first public event on January 28. We installed our first exhibit in February. We opened to the public in March. It has been a crazy year. My job has transitioned from planner to manager, with constant fundraising in between.

Yesterday I received a text message that read: "I am thrilled with the energy, work, and direction I am seeing this museum headed in. Makes you say, 'I want to be a part of that!' "

I can't imagine anything I would rather hear. That kind of has been the plan, so I guess things are moving forward.       

Border Crossing

The weather has broken. The first summer we were in the Imperial Valley the heat was exciting. This past summer it was just hot. We now complain that it is too cold. Over the weekend there was a weather advisory out of Yuma. It was expected to be under 60 degrees and they were warning people to be careful if they were going out to the parade.

On Monday we took our fist hike of the season. We hiked 4500 feet up into the Jacumba Wilderness - all the way to the border. This is a hike I have wanted to do for the last two years. In the wilderness area the border is a broken barbed wire fence. This is not the billion dollar fence you see across the desert from the highway.

We hiked another mile or so to the boundary monument. The border of Mexico was set by the Treaty Guadalupe Hildago Treaty of 1848, and reconfirmed by a survey in 1889. Between 1891 and 1894, 258 boundary monuments were erected along the border. Monument 231 is on Blue Angle Peak in Jacumba. From this vantage point we could see the mountains on the east side of the county and the Salton Sea, both 60 miles away, as well as El Centro, Ocotillo, and Jacumba.

This whole area at one time was the home of the Kumeyaay. The border was placed right through their native lands and today there are reservations both in Mexico and in the US. At the museum we have written a couple grants talking about the artificial border that separates the indigenous peoples. From where we were hiking you could see the US border going both directions, as if it were a giant line drawn in the sand. I had never experienced it like this before. It  was truly amazing. It really looks like an artificial demarcation. A line we have drawn and dared people to cross.

This was a very tough, but very cool hike. Well worth the 19-month wait. The people I was with wanted to go across the border and get a picture looking back at us. I told them they were going to set of the motion detectors. On our way back down we were met by three Border Patrol jeeps. They asked us if we had seen anyone hiking, someone had tripped the monitoring device. So I guess those are real. We will be more careful next time.    

History on the Go

It has been a long time since I have posted a blog. But that does not mean nothing is happening. In December 2010, before I actually came out to California, I developed a personal strategic plan for creating viability and raising the profile of the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. This included what one of the trustees called the "We Do Stuff Program." In May 2011 I developed and wrote a proposal and budget for the We Do Stuff Program called "History on the Go." In June the History on the Go program moved forward into a new strategic plan.

In part the proposal reads, "the Desert Museum would like to take the unique story of the desert region out of the desert and into the classroom." One of the first grants we received here was to pilot the coiled-clay art program. If you have followed my blog or the museum's blog at all you will have read about the coiled-clay program often. This pilot program has been used to develop History on the Go.

This week we committed to fund the History on the Go program for the next three years. It will be the museum's signature public outreach program and will be available, free of charge, to any school in the county.

The program includes a signature "History on the Go" Jeep that will be very visible in the community. Last week, a call from one of our trustees set up a really quick meeting with the local Jeep dealer. I got up in the morning and mocked up a proposal using Adobe Illustrator, which is above, We made our pitch at 9:00am. At 2:30pm we picked up a new Jeep Patriot. This is an exciting development. One of the first programs that I have developed here to really take hold and make a difference. As I write this I am 15 minutes from having a coiled-clay art home school program.  

Earthquakes and other natural disasters

The USGS website lists eleven significant earthquakes around the globe in the last 30 days. We had the top two of them today. The first was a 5.3 two miles north of Brawley at 12:31. We were sitting in the house after church. Deneen thought it was a train. But it just kept shaking and shaking. Then at 1:52 there was a 5.5 about three miles north of Brawley while we were standing in line at Starbucks. That one shook the whole store. We stood at the counter watching the cups shake back and fourth. You could feel the earth shake both ways, first one direction then the next. Everyone just sat there; business as usual.

Deneen thought she felt a couple more during the day. Tonight Lucas and I were just at Walmart. He pointed out that all the signs hanging from the ceiling were swinging back and forth.

Evidently, the fault here was very active today. I just looked at the USGS real time earthquake chart for Southern California. There were over 100 earthquakes listed in Brawley beginning around 7:30am. Most you don't feel. But a 5.5 is pretty big.

Earlier this evening I had to take a hot tub out to the new intern residence at the museum. On my way out of the parking lot I noticed a stream of water by the road that should not have been there. There was a broken water pipe at the storage facility shooting water into the air. I put a quick fix to it and and did not think much, except I could not figure out why the line had broke. It was like a shear break. It was weird. Now it makes since. Tomorrow I am going to have to write up an Environmental Incident report to record damage caused by an earthquake.

Karate Board Breaking at Museum

Water Color Workshop Video

It has been an extremely busy summer. I have not been keeping up with the blog. I came out a year and a half ago to open the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. The museum opened in March and this was our first full summer of programming. We received a summer grant for healthy activities, so Lucas has been teaching karate, and we received a grant for an artist-in-residence. Martin has been here all summer investigating desert sized art and running the youth coiled-clay art program.

This past weekend was the end of our summer programming and we held a watercolor painting workshop. Saturday was also the karate board breaking ceremony. So it was a big, full day. Our whole family participated in the painting class. The painting instructor was really good. Even Deneen liked it. She painted this bird, which I thought turned out great.

There was an article and video in the paper today. Click here to see Davis going on and on about the painting class. The video looks like it was just us, but the other people who came did not give photo release permission.

Big Bay (15 second) Boom

I am sure you have seen on the news the crazy 15 second fireworks display in San Diego on Wednesday. Deneen, Lucas, Davis, and I were there. I flew in to San Diego on Tuesday. We had planned the trip so that we would be able to see the firewors display. We visited the Maritime Museum and the Midway Museum, both located on the bay, and then found a bench at the end of one of the piers.

We staked out a place right on the end of the pier early in the afternoon. Deneen was not extremely happy to sit all afternoon. It was extremely cold for July, 65 degrees, with a stiff wind coming off of the ocean. We did not plan well and had no blankets or chairs.

At about five minutes before 9:00pm there was a tremendous series of explosions. We could see three of the barges, and the barge in front of us was less than 100 yards. It was really loud. I had to put my hands over my ears. The crowd starting cheering, thinking that this was the start to the best fireworks display they were ever going to see. It quickly became apparent that something was wrong. At 9:00 the radio played a coutdown, but then nothing happened. The music that was to sinc with the fireworks continued to play. We could see people with flashlights on the barge. Then, about 20 minutes later, the tug boat attached to the barge put it in high gear and started moving the barge back across the bay.

I just watched the event on Youtube. It looks way different that I remember it. I don't remember the explosions being very big, they were just loud. But the video is crazy. Lucas only captured the last seconds on his iPhone, but you can clearly hear the crowd, and Davis, to understand the everyone's reaction. After sitting on the bay all day it was a real bust. Then we got in the car and drove and hour and a half home.