Mileage: 57,800 Niland Marina Road Niland, California

We said goodbye to Lee and Claudia and then we were off! We took 8W into California back past the Imperial Sand Dunes.

We got off in Holtville and stopped in a small park for some food. Tim made a mid morning snack of the fresh raw cauliflower!

We zigzagged along back-roads through farm fields. Most of the fields appeared to be planted with hay. There were large cattle farms and sheep grazing in planted fields as well.

We found our way to Slab City. This was an old military base. When the base was closed, the buildings were demolished and only the cement slabs were left behind. It was public land and gradually people came out there to live. It is now a popular snowbird destination. Only about 150 people live there year round…the temperatures in the summer are around 120 degrees. Many different kinds of people come to stay here. There are people trying to live off the grid, people that cannot afford to stay anywhere else, people that want the experience of being here, people that just want to be left alone. There is a lot of unusual art and there is a lot of trash. The landfill is a mile before this community but I guess not everyone sees the need to haul the trash away?!?

This is Salvation Mountain. It is about 3 stories tall. It is covered in adobe, and latex paint and inscribed with all kinds of biblical messages.

There were all sorts of living arrangements from tents, to old trucks, to handcrafted lean-to’s, to older and even some newer RV’s.

I left Slab City feeling strangely unsettled. It was hard for me to wrap my head around this type of existence. Everyone we saw today though lifted up a hand to wave as we passed by.

Our next stop was the Salton Sea. Tim’s phone told us that we were at 270 feet below sea level. This body of water was accidentally created when the Colorado River was being diverted back in 1905. It was an engineering mistake. The water from the Colorado flowed into the dry basin for 2 years before the problem could be rectified. The water has a higher salt content than the Pacific Ocean. Tonight we are dry camping in a “waterfront site” on the Salton Sea.

This is our nearest neighbor. He has been coming here to stay in the wintertime for the past 10 years. He used to stay at Slab City but he said that he got too old and it got too wild for him over there. This is a suburb of Slab City. He greeted us when we arrived. He described himself as a God loving man. He comes out here to find peace and to do his studying.