Wednesday, March 9, 2016 (Salt Creek, Salton Sea State Recreation Area, California)

We had another early start to the day today...I think we have decided to stick with it because of the time change coming up this Sunday. After our usual start to the day, we decided to do our resistance exercises...it's been a while! After breakfast and showers, we were ready to go...today we are heading back south a bit to Niland to see Slab City, located a few miles to the east.

Such a beautiful day today...and no wind! The mountains are beautiful!

Just a wee bit dusty in the fields...looks like they are reclaiming the land and going to be planting some crops...

Niland...and our turnoff to the east....

And here we are...Slab City...

Above and below...the area used to be a military base so now some people have taken up living in bunkers...

I was expecting to see lots of dilapidated RV's and structures but I wasn't expecting this...
Salvation Mountain is Leonard's tribute to God and his gift to the world with its simple yet powerful message: "God Is Love."Leonard's passion has lovingly created this brilliant "outsider art " masterpiece resplendent with not only biblical and religious scripture 
such as the Lord's Prayer, John 3:16, and the Sinner's Prayer, but also including flowers, trees, waterfalls, suns, bluebirds, and many other fascinating and colorful objects. Salvation Mountain must be seen to be fully appreciated as those who have made the journey will attest. Its 50 foot height and 150 foot breadth is made totally of local adobe clay and donated paint and is truly unique in the United States and probably the world.

The structures are all made of adobe clay, staw, tree limbs, tires, windows and lots of colourful paint.

There's a worker up there...

Painting flowers...

A small room...

Me coming up the yellow trail...

Well....that was quite the place! It was even deemed a National Folk Art Site in 2000. We continued on into Slab City...I snapped lots of pictures.

A shoe tree...

Lots of folks living on the edge of society...and a lot of garbage...everywhere...

After our tour, we turned around and headed back towards Niland. We were delayed at the railroad crossing waiting for a train...but no train, just this guy. He stopped in front of us and lifted the wheels and drove off the tracks.

I don't know what this building used to be but it looks rather stately...all boarded up now, though. Very cool...

To complete our tour of the area, we stopped at Bombay Beach on our way home.

This is the camping area that is now closed...

Like so many other communities in the Salton Sea area, it has seen better days...

As we pulled into Salt Creek, we noticed we have new neighbours...a class A motorhome has joined us...

Back home, we had lunch and then Steve took his camera and walked down to the beach for some more bird pictures...

It was hot...83F/28C

A pair of Highway Patrol planes. There have also been several fighter aircraft zooming low over the lake but too quick for a photo...

While he did that, I printed off another crochet pattern to try. It is an "intermediate" pattern and may be well beyond my abilities, but I have some yarn so I thought that I would give it a try. When Steve got back, he set the chairs up outside in the shade of the trailer...it's a hot one out there with temperatures around 83F/28C and no wind (well, maybe a slight breeze...but nothing like the wind of the past couple of days!). We met our new neighbours as they walked by...Chris and Dee are from Vancouver Island too. They live just across the inlet from us in Cobble Hill...small world! We chatted with them for a bit and as they left, invited us over for a campfire later...nice!

We sat out there until happy hour (yes...well...we had 2 "dry" days LOL) and then as the sun got lower in the sky moved the chairs around to the front...

We headed inside...to get away from the annoying black flies, besides I needed to download all of the pictures from today so that Steve could edit them. I'd like to try to get this blog post done tonight since we are leaving early in the morning.

We had a beautiful sunset tonight as we grilled burgers for dinner...

Well, he got the pictures done but the blog will have to wait until the morning...we have a campfire to go to! We joined Chris and Dee at their fire for about an hour or so. Very nice meeting you both, perhaps our paths will cross again. Thanks for the campfire!