To the Salton Sea!

Yes, I know, two blogs within a week's time! You're welcome. Today was just so interesting, I had to share.

So, about 15 minutes southeast of Mecca is this giant body of water, the salty Salton Sea. We figured hey, let's go check it out! So we drove to the visitor's center at the Salton Sea State and Recreation Area. We learned that the sea used to be a large whole between two fault lines that filled in with ocean thousands of years ago and left a foot of salt at the bottom when it dried up. Around 1905, the levees for the Colorado River broke and began filling in the dried up ocean hole. After everyone was like, "oh crap! it's flooding!" they decided to make bank by building resorts and marinas around the newly formed body of water. From the early 1900's to the 1960's, the Salton Sea was a huge hotspot frequented by Hollywood actors and singers such as Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys. Unfortunately, around the 1970's the sea began to become polluted from runoff of growing urban areas and it became pretty gross. All of the resorts and marinas were shut down and abandoned, and today it's practically a ghost town with a few trailer parks around the edges.

After the visitor's center, we walked to the shoreline full of crusty, salty briny sand and dead salt-cured fish. It's such a beautiful view of the sea surrounded by mountains, until you look at your feet, or trip over a dead fish. Good times.

Then we drove to this area pictured on the front of a photography book I purchased called Bombay Beach. It was essentially a square mile of trailer homes with a dirt levee around it protecting it from the salty sea. Half of the homes were abandoned and decaying. We decided to climb the levee and walk around the shore. It was absolutely bizarre. There were remnants of old homes and some trailers, phone poles, an old crane and some old docks that were all half buried and covered in this salty briny stuff. It was really quiet and no one was around. A bit eerie I must say, but very interesting.

Then we drove to this oasis in the desert where we hiked a trail through this group of palm trees with a stream running through. It was super cool. There were walls of dried leafy palm trees and a thick canopy. So cool!

So, that was our sweet adventure. I reccommend people to wikipedia the Salton Sea. It's pretty interesting!

Tomorrow we're doing a service project for MLK day. It should be a good time! Hope everyone has a great third week of January!

<3 anne