My fascination with these landmarks along the interstate in southern California should come as no surprise. I've written about my first visit there, I posted about eating at the Wheel Inn next door, and I shared a few pictures from inside the T-Rex. Still, after all of that, I realized I still had a few images from around the dinosaur garden that I had never posted anywhere before. These are the remainder of my snapshots from visiting the Cabazon Dinosaurs in 2009 and 2010. The video I shot and edited as part of my Indio Outio project (also posted below) ended up on the Cabazon Dinosaurs official facebook page back in April. It's always a pleasant surprise to find my photos or videos shared by people who are closest to the subject matter. I guess it's the best part of crazy attractions like this, they're quick to get attention and easy to build memories around. We can all look at the same pictures and take away something from our own visits.
You know when you're killing time in an airport, or your hanging out in a hotel lobby, or you finish exploring a tourist trap and end up in a gift shop? I can't seem to help myself when it comes to buying a magnet and a few postcards. What can I say? It's a habit that feeds my love of nostalgia and they fit in a suitcase easily. They're also relatively cheap things to collect that give you something tangible from the place you've just been. As you can see below, I'm into that.
From old photos and promotional clips, to vintage postcards and stories about the location, the Salton Sea has fascinated me since first visiting in the summer of 2009. At the time the renovations to the North Shore Yacht Club had just begun, but the old abandoned structure was still very much the same as it had been for over a decade. This short video recaps my first visit to the infamous Salton Sea in southern California.
Along the eastern shore of the Salton Sea, Bombay Beach is a small community in the middle of the desert that resembles a post-apocalyptic ghost town. While several people still live here, if you drive over the flood berm you enter a wasteland of submerged trailers and buildings, left to decay since the floods several decades ago. Like most of the areas surrounding the Salton Sea, there's an air of past potential that's evaporated faster than the sea itself. When the floods came, people simply didn't come back. The floods tipped the scale, but there were a lot of problems before then. A lot of problems about the ecological state of the sea that still have yet to be resolved.
The infamous airstream trailer, now just a wooden frame, is said to be one of the most photographed airstream trailers in the world. It's actually a bit of a draw for Bombay Beach. With the Salton Sea actually known for being a photographers playground, you can look back at collections of pictures from over a decade ago when there was still water surrounding the submerged trailer. These days it seems to be deteriorating quickly. Despite the decay, the area is surprisingly beautiful. With mountains in the distance and the sea merging with the sky on the horizon, it's not difficult to see what initially attracted people by the thousands to vacation here in the 1950s and 1960s. Bombay Beach is still a fascinating and eye-opening place, although the reasons to visit have clearly changed.
There are places that immediately distinguish themselves as one of a kind. When getting my first glance of Salvation Mountain just outside of Niland, California it was clear that we were about to experience something we wouldn't soon forget.
Created by Leonard Knight, Salvation Mountain is a shrine created from hay bails, old telephone poles, and layers upon layers of paint. Everything at the site has been decorated in such bright colors it gives the impression of a cartoon-like atmosphere. Leonard lives at the site, and despite being in his eighties now is more than happy to give you a personal tour and share his stories.
I first heard about Salvation Mountain after watching Into the Wild - a portion of the film takes place in Slab City which you can see from the site. At first I expected Leonard Knight to be overly eccentric, maybe even a little scary, but the reality is that all that apprehension disappears when meeting him face to face. He wasn't pushy about religion and he didn't seem to have any motive for making money from the visits, instead he was simply proud to share and talk about what has become his masterpiece.
I think the photographs speak volumes about the level of detail and originality that exist in this quiet site off the eastern shore of the Salton Sea. It was undoubtedly one of the biggest highlights from our 2009 cross country road trip.
