Tom and Donna Full-timer RV Blog: California's Salton Sea

Because of the adverse weather, I thought today would be a good day to visit the Salton Sea. Donna and I went to the west side of the lake a few years ago and always meant to get to "Slab City" on the east side, but fell a little short of time. I'll finish that journey today.

The palm fronds don't all lean that way naturally...it takes quite a blow to cause this.

The midsection of America is called the bread basket, well around the Salton Sea it's called America's Salad Bowl, because of the temperate weather in the winter. This field is just getting ready for a crop.

Date orchards are real big in the area, although I'm not sure how much of it stays in the states. I don't know anyone that eats dates on a regular basis. If you do drive through, by all means get a "date Shake"...they are to die for!

Since it is so close, I thought I'd make my pilgrimage to Mecca...it's a once in the lifetime trip.

The Salton Sea was not an accident of nature, but rather an accident of greed. Some developers dug two canals from the Colorado River, both without permission, but one of them illegally in Mexico to supply water for, what then was called the Salton Sink. Mother nature got pissed off and a flood in 1905 broke thru the canals and poured the full volume of the mighty river in the sink...for 16 months! To put that into proper perspective...for a year and a half, not one drop of the river water flowed to the Gulf of Mexico.

The state of California has a few good looking campgrounds and a visitor center. In its heyday, 1950's, the Salton Sea had more visitors than Yosemite Valley. Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there... but I digress.

This is my first (and pretty sure, my last) visit to Slab City and its Salvation Mountain.

First off...it isn't a mountain, it is barely 50 feet tall. Leonard Knight created this cliff painting with straw, adobe and "lead free" paint over the past years until his hospitalization in 2011.

Interesting is that Barbra Boxer, a California Senator addressed the US congress and stated "it is a unique and visionary sculpture...a national treasure...profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives". I'll have to take her word for it.

Slab City is a place Donna and I always wanted to visit because it's considered the last free place in California...free from the cost of parking your RV in the desert, free from the government and free of police hassling you.

Free of the pesky HOA's

Free from the architectural committee.

Some of the of the spots have a view.

Free from garbage fees. Yeah, not really what I had envisioned, all the lipstick in the world won't help this pig. I've been in 3rd world countries that looked better than Slab City.

Bombay City was to be a booming community on the sea in the 60's until two hurricanes devastated the town in the 70's...hurricane in California? Yeah, right, who knew.

At least they left me with a beach chair.

Pilings far from the water's edge.

The sea had five major fish until the salinity increased from evaporation and farming to twice the ocean salt content, now only Tilapia are left in the sea...400,000,000 of them. There are constant die offs and the smell is distinct.

Hard to believe...but I have to check this out.

Na...after having lunch at the Spa and watching the volleyball game at the pool, unless they were in their 90's when the game started...the fountain of youth is not working.

The US Border and Customs was doing its job of protecting us near the border, thank you.

In the 60's, some developers thought it would be a good idea to build a subdivision that mirrors Venice in California...with its romantic canals. Unfortunately the sea has lost about 10 feet of surface to evaporation, so the canals are sort of pathetic.