Salton Sea And Coachella Valley - Road Trip!

While on this side of the Sea we stopped once in the smoky confines of the Red Earth Casino, which played exactly to type: a small, smoky gambling establishment in a state where normally neither is legal.

On the southern end of the Sea are the farming communities of Westmorland and Brawley. Neither is very scenic, but both abound with cheap hotels, cheapish gas, and very, very authentic Mexican food. State Route 78 mixes it up with the 111 and the 86 past the southern end of the Sea and leads west into San Diego County or northeast to the sand dune riding mecca of Glamis, and on to the Colorado River.

Slab City

Out on the east side of the valley is a tucked-away destination so weird and so iconic, it deserves its own chapter. While this area is the ancestral home of the Cahuilla Indians, Slab City is the home to modern primitives: mostly white off-the-gridders who have taken over an area formerly used as a Marine base. Several thousand residents inhabit this place in the winter, though crazy high summer heat takes that number down to about 150 midyear.

The first trick to having a Slab City adventure is finding it. It's just east of the tiny town of Niland off of State Route 111 on the east side of the Salton Sea. There are two main drags in Niland Main and Niland. Take either one through town to the northeast corner where they merge. Follow the road east past the dump and the electrical station, until you see a very colorful hill, otherwise known as Salvation Mountain.

Salvation Mountain is known as the Gateway to Slab City, and as an official State Treasure, it's likely to stay that way. Salvation Mountain is a hillside covered in adobe and paint, built by Leonard Knight for the last 25 years. Leonard estimates he's used over a hundred thousand gallons of paint on the Mountain, and he's not planning on stopping any time soon. Whatever your religious inclination, Leonard is an inspirational man to talk to, with a pure message of love that's refreshingly different from the fearmongers that are so common in some religious circles. Ask for a tour and leave a donation. You won't regret it. The mountain is actually less impressive in some ways than the complex chambers Leonard has built on the side of the Mount, which is a planned museum. He's got a trophy room, and a collection of plaques of old press clippings about the Mountain. Leonard's even embraced the Internet, through volunteers who maintain a website for him (though he admits that he doesn't really under stand the concept).

A free tip from Leonard for your home art projects. If you want cool 3D effects like he has on all of his cars and signs, use shoe repair goop. Apparently it sticks to everything (including paint) and is fairly indestructible.

Continuing on from Salvation, it first looks like you've entered any other RV campground, as camping rigs begin to dot the landscape. But before long you get into weirder and more ornate collections of artistically-arranged knickknacks and trash. It's like a low-rent version of Burning Man that isn't for just one weekend. True, many of the people out here are here due to economic hardship, but lots more just like the absolute anarchic self-governing freedom of the place. Electricity is self-generated via solar or gas, but there's community, a shower down by one of the aqueducts, and on weekends, food vendors and concerts.

There are a few centerpieces to The Slabs that make up a sort of downtown. The Range is the dancehall and concert venue. We came during the day, but were invited back for the free show which goes on every Saturday night from November to April. We happened to show up on Prom Night. They assured us that they had loaner clothes if we didn't bring a tuxes along. There is also a Christian Worship center, a honor-system based library, and a bulletin board which passes for a communication device where cell service (and electricity) is scarce.