On the Road in the Left Whale: March 2023

Party time

So the Salton sea is an amazing phenomenon - here is a link, but the synopsis is:

100000 years ago the Sea of Cortez went all the way up to Palm Spring, CA.
Then the Colorado river dumped such a lot of silt into the delta, it cut off 35 miles of the sea - which subsequently dries up. It is 200 odd ft below sea level on the San Andreas fault line (lower than Death Valley)
Along comes the Army Corp of Engineers in 1907 to build another canal to get water to California from the Colorado river.
The Colorado river floods, breaks the canal levy and for 16 months the whole Colorado river flows into what is now the Salton sea and creates the largest lake in California.
California being California sees opportunity here, stocks the new lake with fish and starts building resorts and the lake becomes the party spot for Southern California.
With no exit for the water, the lake becomes salty, so all the fish die - without missing a beat, they stock salt water fish... which also dies when the lake becomes so salty, nothing can survive, except the cockroach piscean - tilapia - which still exists in the lake.
End of the story is the lake is so toxic, you cannot (or should not) eat any surviving fish, swim in it, use any of the water... but there is now a vision (from Bill Gates, Elon fking Musk and other mfers) that they are going to be able to get lithium for the never-ending thirst of batteries from deep down in the earth crust, and so the next chapter starts.

After surviving Palm Springs during Friday afternoon traffic, I spent the night at the Salton Sea State campsite. Chatted to Jim - a disabled vet who lives full-time in his van with his dog.

Palm Springs - all traffic and golf courses and palm trees

Arrived at Mecca?

Groves and groves of palm trees. Please note Escondido appreciating the scenery.

State RV park

See the rabbit?

Crusty salt heaves - weird shore

Dead limpets?

makes beautiful patterns

Even makes the tires look nice?

My only fish skeleton on the beach

Sunset

Next day was on to Bombay Beach - one of the 1950s beach resorts. Crazy place. Initial idea was to spend the morning and then move on, but the town was such a visual mindfuck, I decided to camp on the beach and just hang. Amazing weekend - 2 bands on Saturday at the Ski Inn bar - run by 2 80 year old locals who saw the whole development of the town and worked 14 hours on Saturday. A Canadian couple - Eric and Linda and I closed the bar on Saturday. The band was great. The company excellent. I have decided that I really like Canadians - even though they cannot play hockey. Eric and Linda were close to 70, looked like they were under 60, both worked Canadian state jobs and retired at 55 with full health care and livable pensions... crazy what these communist countries can do. There is going to be lots of photos, and unfortunately I have not been able to figure out how to get them in time sequence without doing one at a time which ain't gonna happen... going to have to put the rest of the pics in a google album and will post the link here.

Beach stuff

Dreams halted midway

What is left of the party town...

Camping on the beach

I actually attended the church service on Sunday - crazy stuff

This is the old marina entrance/boat launch

Totally crazy

The LA guy - was really good. Mainly Beatles...

Hierdie ou lyk nes Anton Goosen back in the day. Canadian singer

Book, Beer and company in a cage? What could be better on a Saturday afternoon

My campsite - 'on the beach' after the nuclear holocaust

The bar. I suggested they should change the sign to "You cannot go any lower"

The DaVinci fish - its actually a windvane

The local library

No comment

Local drive-in

Big boat for small sea

No comment

This yard had 'the tallest ghost in the world'... but it blew down the previous week.

Read the sign - there is an old marine bombing range close by and Bombay beach got its name from the bomb bays opening when the planes came by to drop torpedoes in the '40s

3CPO

Monday I decided that rather than boondock while working I would check into "Fountain of Youth" RV park. Situated against the slopes of the Chocolate mountains, it has just less than 1,000 RV sites, 2 large warm water pools and at least 8 smaller 'spa's'. 55+ community. "Funny to be the same age as old people..."

Stanley is getting one of these

Still miss Bob, Tim and Tom

Back in Bombay beach - guy in the middle is the bar owner

This is a moving sculpture. the balls swing around (as they should), and have the best reflections - which I somehow could not capture.

The fish that did not get away.

The only 'real' fish skeleton

My place

Lots of organized activities and busy bodies doing stuff at the Fountain of Youth, but at least I saw some live music and played table tennis... I did get my ass handed to me in table tennis by an 80yr old... but then he does play 7 days a week (or that is my excuse). Funny part was he thought I was letting him win (Chris??)

The next weekend I headed towards Slab City - my actual destination for the previous week. There is a place called the Range which has great live music and .... but it turned out to be 'like driving though a landfill' - 30 years ago it must have been great. Large installation art and weird people, but all that is left is trash and drugs and what was once great art. Salvation Mountain still survives as there is someone that is actively looking after it, but the rest was a bit of a disappointment.

Lots of religion at Slab City

The sole tree

and then there is Salvation Mountain

I came away with the thought that this god of theirs must have a weird sense of humor...

Headed back to Bombay Beach again for Friday night.

Another band from the high desert (big rivalry between the hi and lo desert folks)

Apparently this is what a 4 dimentional cube looks like in 3 dimensions.. and that is without any mind-altering chemicals.

Someone is digging an underground niteclub and that is the entrance. Only problem is that he dug up a septic tank, but just dug around it and is now going to call the club... the septic tank.

The box behind the flowers were donated/placed by the Canadians - Eric and Linda

Sunset from the roof

Yound couple from Poland and their planned trip. They started in Toronto.

New sculpture 1

New sculpture 2

Saturday I was off to Calipatria and the mud pods - just weird bubling pods of hot water in the middle of agricultural fields. Also saw a few thermal electicity generation plants and a few places where they are trying to extract lithium from deep down.

Bubbling mud volcanos with a thermal electricity generation plant in the background.

Headed on to Yuma, but stopped off at some Hot Springs next to the highway. Free camping at BLM land, and across the street is a free spa. Only problem was the I8 highway was next to that...