It wasn't before long when we spotted our reason for coming to this God-foresaken part of the world: the mysterious and majestic Salton Sea. A natural below-sea-level basin that filled with water after some flooding and agricultural runoff got out of hand, the Sea is a bizarre body of water that attracts a variety of migratory waterfowl and anti-establishment freaks. But it wasn't always thus: back in the 1920s, the Sea was a happening holiday destination, a watersport haven where younguns in provacative bathing attire could run footloose and fancy free far from the "man". Unfortunately, nature happened and the banks flooded, burying the surrounding settlements in mud while the salinity in the water reached alarming levels.
We rolled into the once rollicking town of Bombay Beach, now a disheveled settlement with boarded up businesses and inhabitants looking to get away from it all. It's the sort of place where you expect to see obese elderly man cruise around on golf carts with American Flag suspenders, weaving around the unmaintained roads because they just spent the morning at the Legion (the lone business that does any business). We enjoyed a disgracefully unhealthy lunch on the banks of the sea in a recreation area that had been closed for quite some time, wondering why in hell anybody would choose to live out here.
As weird as Bombay Beach was, it paled in comparison to our next surreal settlement. On what appeared to be an abandoned ranch, some very creative people with a whole lot of time on their hands had created several UFO-related sculptures out of scrap metal. There were several bombed-out buildings on site, all showing signs of recent habitation. Graffiti ranged from adolescent Jim Morrison-worshiping banalities to obscure hieroglyphics. It was something straight out of a Mad Max film; I was half expecting to find some dudes with spikes shoulder pads lurking about.
Our explorations of the bizarre made a final push to our car an impossibility (not really, but our predilection towards masochism died about a hundred miles ago). We decided to set up camp at an actual state park campsite, with showers and picnic tables. Fortunately it was more or less deserted with the exception of a few RVers who shared our fascination with this gloriously insane body of water. $5 well spent, even for shamelessly cheap bastards like us.
No comments:
Post a Comment