Hi Canie. Since you liked the news reports about the Santa Barbara area so much I thought you might enjoy this, as it’s a little closer to home. Take Care…Don in creepy town

The first Spanish expedition to reach Baja California via an overland route from Sonora was the group of twenty-five soldiers led by captain Melchior Díaz.16 At the head of the gulf, Díaz found letters which had been written two months earlier by Hernando de Alarcón and buried at the foot of a tree indicating that this was not a good place to attempt to cross the river. Díaz proceeded upstream to a place where his party could cross safely. Venturing down the western side of the Colorado, he and his men followed the only good route, which brought them to the vicinity of Cerro Prieto in late December 1540. "They came to some sand banks of hot ashes which it was impossible to cross without being drowned as in the sea. The ground they were standing on trembled like a sheet of paper, so that it seemed as if there were lakes underneath them. It seemed wonderful and like something infernal, for the ashes to bubble up here in several places. They had gone away from this place, on account of the danger they seemed to be in and the lack of water."17

• San Diego History