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Photojournal of my trip to the Salton Sea with Comy and Palmer. It's sort of long, but there are some cool pictures and fun happenings so read on.
So on Saturday, Palmer, Comy, and I drove to the Salton Sea, for fun. The Salton Sea is a large salty man-made lake (the largest body of water in CA) in the middle of the desert. It was originally planned as a vacation destination akin to Palm Springs, with several developments in the 1950s, but over the years it has gotten saltier and saltier and more and more polluted from the sewage-filled water which feeds it from Mexico. Now it is smelly, brown, and surrounded by decaying ruins, near-emtpy towns, and creepy shit. Here are some pictures from our day trip:
Driving there.
Outside Palm Springs.
Windmills near Palm Springs. It was really really windy...go figure.
In Salton City.
Oh Bruce!
Nooooothing goin on.
The Double Cheeseburger here was good. They had a lot of witty (or not) bumber stickers and signs all around for decor.
What's going on outside the Superburger.
We turned off the freeway onto this road that said "pavement ends", but we kept going anyway. We offroaded for a little bit but I was being a pussy so we turned around.
Desert.
We were driving around the Salton City area and saw this bus in the middle of nowhere, way off any paved road. We went and checked it out.
Nobody was there so we pried our way in. It was dusty and deserted inside, with an Astronomy magazine and some toothbrushes and some clothes though. It was pretty fucked up though so we were sure nobody lived there.
Me in the lawnchair I took as a souvenir.
Arriving at the seaside...which smelled really really bad. Like dead rotting fish and sewage. Great.
Dead fish anybody?
The "sand" was really deep like this because...
...it's fucking made of barnacles and fish heads. What the fuckkkk????
Fucked up gas station in Niland.
Salvation mountain is this religious monument created by a man named Leonard Knight to show his devotion to god and to spread the message that God is Love. He ended up in the middle of nowhere on the Salton Sea and built this giant mountain and then these little buildings on the side made with branches and adobe.
Lots of colors, very cool.
Palmsy taking a polaroid, Comy in God.
Leonard and us. He gave us a personal tour, and Palmer and I pretended to be zealous Christians and Comy pretended to be "Josh". I said "Amen" after everything but I don't think he noticed. He gave us a Salvation Mountain puzzle and a DVD of him giving the tour, which anybody can borrow if they want. (He basically says the same thing every tour I guess, because its word for word and action for action the tour he gave us.)
Next to Salvation Mountain is this place called Slab City. Its this place with a bunch of concrete slabs left over from some military base, and old hippies come and squat here and live out there days. Nobody was there at this time of year though.
The town of Bombay Beach. A complete shithole. Just a bunch of trailers, reeking like fish. If you look on wikipedia, the entry calls it the most depressing place on earth.
Comy at the abandoned RV park we explored.
More beautiful water.
Palmer and Comy went and explored the empty trailers. Comy found a jar filled with mystery food floating in brown liquid, and he threw it to break it open. Fucking retarded.
I like this picture.
Next we went to the abandoned North Shore Yacht Club. It was where all the swanky people went in the 50s, but now its just empty and shutdown and creepy.
Scenic Salton Sea.
Dude we totally ripped this shit up on our boards.
Palmer and Comy exploring.
The abandoned motel next door.
Palmer didn't want me to take this picture, but it illustrates how fuckin hot it was.
Bruce and Dinny. If Dinny looks slightly depressed, its because a bunch of Christians bought the famous dinosaurs and turned them into a Creationist museum and giftshop. Yeah, the dinosaurs were wiped out in Noah's flood.
Lookin cool.
Eating at the restaurant next to the dinosaurs. As you can see, the only divider between us and the table next to us was a curtain. A couple sat down next to us, and the man got on the phone and started telling the person about how "There's an infection in her brain and, if she does live, which isn't likely, she will be not be the same person" and "We brought in a priest and he gave her the last rites" and...we were listening the entire time and making faces and it was really really fucked up to have to hear that all.
So that's it for pictures. The trip was fun and interesting and everything we wanted it to be. I now have a few possible other day trips arranged - one to Atolia, a deserted town in the North Mojave in the middle of nowhere, one to Newberry Springs (where the Bagdad Cafe is) and to the Kelso Dunes (which sing when the wind blows), and one to the Center of the Universe, this town called Felicity that this guy built in the desert near the border and then built a pyramid that he declared the center of the known world. Each trip has assorted weird stops on the way that I got from my "Weird California" book. Tell me if you want to go, and which one sounds the most interesting. The last two trips would take a while, so we'd have to leave earlyish and get back lateish. But its all in the name of adventure and fun.
So on Saturday, Palmer, Comy, and I drove to the Salton Sea, for fun. The Salton Sea is a large salty man-made lake (the largest body of water in CA) in the middle of the desert. It was originally planned as a vacation destination akin to Palm Springs, with several developments in the 1950s, but over the years it has gotten saltier and saltier and more and more polluted from the sewage-filled water which feeds it from Mexico. Now it is smelly, brown, and surrounded by decaying ruins, near-emtpy towns, and creepy shit. Here are some pictures from our day trip:
Driving there.
Outside Palm Springs.
Windmills near Palm Springs. It was really really windy...go figure.
In Salton City.
Oh Bruce!
Nooooothing goin on.
The Double Cheeseburger here was good. They had a lot of witty (or not) bumber stickers and signs all around for decor.
What's going on outside the Superburger.
We turned off the freeway onto this road that said "pavement ends", but we kept going anyway. We offroaded for a little bit but I was being a pussy so we turned around.
Desert.
We were driving around the Salton City area and saw this bus in the middle of nowhere, way off any paved road. We went and checked it out.
Nobody was there so we pried our way in. It was dusty and deserted inside, with an Astronomy magazine and some toothbrushes and some clothes though. It was pretty fucked up though so we were sure nobody lived there.
Me in the lawnchair I took as a souvenir.
Arriving at the seaside...which smelled really really bad. Like dead rotting fish and sewage. Great.
Dead fish anybody?
The "sand" was really deep like this because...
...it's fucking made of barnacles and fish heads. What the fuckkkk????
Fucked up gas station in Niland.
Salvation mountain is this religious monument created by a man named Leonard Knight to show his devotion to god and to spread the message that God is Love. He ended up in the middle of nowhere on the Salton Sea and built this giant mountain and then these little buildings on the side made with branches and adobe.
Lots of colors, very cool.
Palmsy taking a polaroid, Comy in God.
Leonard and us. He gave us a personal tour, and Palmer and I pretended to be zealous Christians and Comy pretended to be "Josh". I said "Amen" after everything but I don't think he noticed. He gave us a Salvation Mountain puzzle and a DVD of him giving the tour, which anybody can borrow if they want. (He basically says the same thing every tour I guess, because its word for word and action for action the tour he gave us.)
Next to Salvation Mountain is this place called Slab City. Its this place with a bunch of concrete slabs left over from some military base, and old hippies come and squat here and live out there days. Nobody was there at this time of year though.
The town of Bombay Beach. A complete shithole. Just a bunch of trailers, reeking like fish. If you look on wikipedia, the entry calls it the most depressing place on earth.
Comy at the abandoned RV park we explored.
More beautiful water.
Palmer and Comy went and explored the empty trailers. Comy found a jar filled with mystery food floating in brown liquid, and he threw it to break it open. Fucking retarded.
I like this picture.
Next we went to the abandoned North Shore Yacht Club. It was where all the swanky people went in the 50s, but now its just empty and shutdown and creepy.
Scenic Salton Sea.
Dude we totally ripped this shit up on our boards.
Palmer and Comy exploring.
The abandoned motel next door.
Palmer didn't want me to take this picture, but it illustrates how fuckin hot it was.
Bruce and Dinny. If Dinny looks slightly depressed, its because a bunch of Christians bought the famous dinosaurs and turned them into a Creationist museum and giftshop. Yeah, the dinosaurs were wiped out in Noah's flood.
Lookin cool.
Eating at the restaurant next to the dinosaurs. As you can see, the only divider between us and the table next to us was a curtain. A couple sat down next to us, and the man got on the phone and started telling the person about how "There's an infection in her brain and, if she does live, which isn't likely, she will be not be the same person" and "We brought in a priest and he gave her the last rites" and...we were listening the entire time and making faces and it was really really fucked up to have to hear that all.
So that's it for pictures. The trip was fun and interesting and everything we wanted it to be. I now have a few possible other day trips arranged - one to Atolia, a deserted town in the North Mojave in the middle of nowhere, one to Newberry Springs (where the Bagdad Cafe is) and to the Kelso Dunes (which sing when the wind blows), and one to the Center of the Universe, this town called Felicity that this guy built in the desert near the border and then built a pyramid that he declared the center of the known world. Each trip has assorted weird stops on the way that I got from my "Weird California" book. Tell me if you want to go, and which one sounds the most interesting. The last two trips would take a while, so we'd have to leave earlyish and get back lateish. But its all in the name of adventure and fun.