1-20-05 Pilgrimage to Mecca, Bad dog, lemons, rabbit food, Slab City

It was a nice little hot fire last night. I stayed up late to write and post the days log to my website. I did some changing around in the files on the website and that is why the link I gave the first time didn’t work. I have been trying to keep a tidy filing system in the background of the website and not let it get away from me like I did when I did the icelandicsheep site. I learn by making mistakes it seems.

I thought I was well away from any traffic other than a stray dezert dog trying out a dirt bike or some such. I’m glad I pulled about a hundred yards off this little dirt track because around first light the pickups started rolling down MY road. There must have been twenty or so that went by and some slowed down to take a look over my way. As it got lighter I could see what I thought was a dark patch of desert, was really an orchard area. I guess the traffic was workers on their way to work  the fields. After I picked up camp I headed down the road and found I had just come into a farming area. Most of the crops were grapes or citrus. I don’t remember exactly where it is but somewhere after Desert Center I stopped at a filling station and found the General George Patton Museum. The museum was closed but I got this photo of one of the tanks that they have on display.

They have quite a few tanks of different models and condition. I took a look out back and there is a graveyard of tanks out there. I think Patton did some of his war game training out here with these tanks during WWII.
There is a bronze statue of him out front and this being a dezert dog web page I just had to include this photo of him and his dog. How cool that the dog got to come along and in bronze too. He looks like a tough sort of dezert dog.

 I turned off on State Route 111 and came to this sign.

I can tell you that it is all down hill from here. The road goes through a wilderness area and it looks like it would be a cool place to hike around in.  Mecca is 182 feet below sea level.  Mecca certainly isn’t a destination as far as I am concerned, it is nothing but a road junction and a small store with bars on the windows. Yah, I am down to the area where they have bars on all the windows and doors. I just hate the looks of it, but understand what the situation is here. Be careful!!! There are however lots of lemon trees along the side of the road that hang over the fence. Some of them are almost as big as softballs. I liberated a small sack (over the fence ones mostly).J I had been reading in one of my farmer magazines about mechanical trimmers that they were using in the orchards. I found this orchard that had the trees planted very close together and they must have used one recently.

There is quite a bit of farming along the side of the road. Here is a nice field of newly planted peppers.

They put plastic down and it looks like they punch a hole in the plastic to plant the peppers. There is a drip line under the plastic to water them.

 Here is a field that is having the plastic put down.

This is quite an operation and they go down the field fairly fast.

Mecca is near the north end of the Salton Sea and that Sea is huge. I seem to remember that a bunch of guys were screwing around with a river (Colorado?) and it got away from them and filled the lake. Humm, I might have that all wrong. Anybody know that story? I’ll bet Tucker does, this is his ol’ stomping grounds.

The road from Mecca down to Niland goes along the eastern edge of the Salton Sea. There are quite a few campgrounds all along the coast with a few RV parks as well. There were very few campers and it looked like a pretty miserable place to be, but with so many campsites they must get used sometime. They look like they would be hot and or cold and no doubt windy as hell out along the beach.

It isn’t far from Mecca down to Niland, which is just a wide place in the road with a few stores scattered along the road. It is a very poor trashy place that is kind of spread out. It seems to be mostly Mexicans and probably most of them work in the fields around here. This is farming country and lets see if I can name a few of the things I have seen growing so far. Oranges, grapefruit, lemons, artichokes, date palms, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes?, grapes, alfalfa (could be cut any time now), and  a few other I couldn’t identify. Here   is a field being harvested for cabbage. This is were your cabbage in the store is coming from.

I stopped in Niland which I understood is the closest place to Slab City. I saw a small Laundromat and figured I would finally change into something cleaner and more summer like. The dirties got a good  wash and I had a chance to talk with a guy with long grey  hair and drove a rats ass Volvo. It  turns out he lives at SC and his outfit is rigged out like Lil’ Red, toss the passenger seat out and presto room to sleep. He has been coming down here for four years from New York. He gave me directions, turn at the store and head out for four miles. “You cant miss it.”

While I was waiting for my clothes to wash, I popped open the computer and thought I would check email. Before I could connect with the cell phone, a little box popped up and asked if I wanted to connect to the wifi. Why sure I do. It said it was unprotected which means anyone can use it. Way cool, eh? So I connected and presto I downloaded nine emails. Hey folks, it is REALLY good to hear from you all. Evidently some are even traveling along with me, and that is great, love to have ya and wish you were here. It does sound like it is really nice in MT now and I remember when Susan and I were in the Big Bend park in Texas the winter we were looking for a farm,  I found a news paper that said it was 70 something degrees in Billings and we had been freezing our butts off in the rain and cold in Texas.

After I got my clothes done I headed to see the sights. Well, I can tell you that it is true, ya cant miss it. From a distance you can see Jesus hill, or something like that.

 This is the old Army guard station that I guess is the official entry point to Slab City.

Notice the somewhat larger motor home than mine in the background. There is a main road that is an old pavement and side roads that seem to be mostly gravel. People are just parked every which way and all over the place. There seems to be a good mix of everything from tents to huge $$ motor homes. I wandered around the ‘streets’ to get a feel for the place. I finally stopped at a ‘business’ on the main street and talked with a guy that sells solar equipment and asked about info on heading to Mexico. He was really nice and he spends just the winter here selling solar panels and other stuff to the campers. He directed me to a couple of singles clubs that were just down the way from his place. Singles places?? What the??? The only place that was open was a really nice clean place consisting of four or so trailers gathered around a shaded slab with chairs and tables. There didn’t seem to be anyone there, but I looked in one trailer and found a lady putting a jig saw puzzle together. She was really nice and said that ‘everyone’ was up to Quartzsite at the camp up there. The club is the LOW’s which stands for Loners on Wheels I think. Evidently they have a chapter in Quartzsite and maybe other places as well. The solar guy said they would probably want me to sign up and be a member. Ahh, I don’t think so.  The lady said that they were getting a group together and they were leaving for a month stay in Mexico around the end of the month. Somehow I cant imagine going with a group of  old gray hairs. Hummm, my hair was starting to lighten up some I noticed when Ken cut my hair. I know my dad kept cutting his hair shorter and shorter as his hair finally turned white. The lady said that everyone is on the same footing here. no one is better than the other. She said they have people that have nothing but a tent and a bicycle up to folks that have $200,000 motor homes. The way things go is you pick out a spot and stay or leave and find another that suits ya. The guy at the solar store said that on the whole, most everybody gets along. He said that there have been a few instances where a professional crook has come in and stolen stuff like solar panels and generators,  but on the whole it is pretty safe.

I drove around a little more and found a campsite that I am not thrilled with but no one else seems to want either. I tried to take a nap but it is too dang hot and finally I had to give up when a fly found me and wouldn’t leave me alone. Did I mention that out in the middle of that desert last night there were mosquitoes? At least at –14 in Montana, I didn’t have to deal with mosquitoes. I guess there is no perfect place all the time.

I don’t like this place and will head out in the morning. I am just not the kind of person who likes to live in town and this is sort of a town. I sure can see how it could be a great place for retired folks with little income to live on the cheap. I just don’t like to have to find a bush to pee behind when others surround me. I do like the idea of NO RULES and being self-governed. I would like to see more places like this. I guess the down side of this place is that there is a lot of trash in places where people have just left their garbage behind or in the case of where I am camped tonight, a trailer or shack burned down and all the left over shit is here. Most places are kept up and quite a few of them have fences and nice ‘yards’.

Oh NO!! a comfirmed mosquito kill. It looks like a rough night again. I gotta find that DEET I have stashed somewhere.

I am listing to NPR out of LA on the inaugural events. Yuck. There are lots of blasting stations coming out of Mexico that are getting me in the mood to head south. Como esta usted? Gee, I forget what that means. 

I took this photo of the coals of my fire last night and thought it came out interesting. Looking into a fire is so mesmerizing and in some way, seems to connect me to the first man who tamed fire. There  was nothing but a pile of ash this morning on the sand. I need to find a piece of tin for a reflector like I carried with me last year.

Cheers, Rx