But I'm back! And eventually I'll tell you about my January trip to Dallas, New Years' trip to Vegas, and...yeah. I think that's all the traveling I've done this year, sadly.
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| First-time travel partner! |
My friend Jackie and I were roommates during my junior (her sophomore) year of college. We didn't know each other at all when I found out I'd be living with her. I signed up to live in the ASU downtown dorms two days after the cutoff, and anxiously waited to learn who my roommate would be (praying she wouldn't be absolutely crazy/messy and would somehow be telepathic and know exactly what I was thinking).
As soon as I found out Jackie was my roommate, I Facebook stalked her and found her and messaged her and said "Hey, I think we're going to be roommates!" One thing led to another and BOOM, we were talking about and exchanging links to Vice pieces about the Salton Sea.
It was somewhere we'd both been intrigued by and interested in visiting, and we tossed around the idea of taking a trip. Two and a half years later, we actually did it.
We left Phoenix on a Friday evening and drove to Brawley, California, where we stayed at a hotel that gave us a bar of chocolate and a hand written note thanking us for staying with them. We also walked to a doughnut shop after Jackie asked me "how safe is this city?" and I gave her the crime report statistics because that's actually something I totally looked into before deciding we were staying there for the night.
For the record, Brawley is slightly safer than Phoenix. It just looks kinda sketchy at night when you're walking past an alley way to get to the 24-hour doughnut shop that also sells Conchas next to the Von's grocery store.
In the morning we packed up shop and left the hotel. Our first major stop was Salvation Mountain, located in Niland, California.
For starters, I don't know many people* who are willing to leave Phoenix for a trip to California that will involve dead fish, a putrid lake, a beach made of fish bones and a man-made mountain of hay, tires, dirt and latex paint constructed entirely as a testament to God's love...but Jackie is one of those people, and I'm so grateful for that.
*actually, I know a lot of people who would be willing to do this, but they all live in Portland.
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| I hope my future grandchildren find this someday and think "Damn, my grandma was a badass." |
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| I didn't find anything particularly noteworthy--just some graffiti, some dirty clothing and an old computer monitor. |
When the Salton Sea was first created (by a complete fluke of nature), it flooded a basin in southern California and paved the way for waterfront vacation properties to pop up. Long story short, the sea had no outflow, so the salinity rose and everything died--including the waterfront towns.
Bombay Beach currently has about six square blocks of actual, living residents as well as the rickety bones and sunken foundations of former buildings.
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| This may have been a crane once upon a time. |
We explored the shoreline and saw everything from old, metal school desk chairs scattered in the water off the beach to a camper/trailer completely sunk into sand up to its roof. Had it not been for a crowd of Good Samaritans preparing to tow a car ahead of us, we would have also accidentally driven into some loose gravelly sand and been stuck.
After nearly driving into the quicksand (which it was not, but for story's sake, let's call it that) we decided we'd had enough of the barren beach and wanted shade, rest and lunch.
It was time to head to the campground.
When I first told Jackie I wanted to camp, I think she was apprehensive--but she handled it like a pro. If you click the video above, you'll notice we set up the tent in our dresses, because #femalesarestrongashell. We spent the entire afternoon sitting behind her car/in her car/eating salami/reading books/talking about adulthood and what life is like after graduation.
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| Thank you for always taking my photo, Jackie. |
After photos, we opened a bottle of wine (if you know us, you know we pretend to be wine connoisseurs) and cooked cans of soup over a nifty propane burner I bought not too long ago!
We soon went to sleep--the sun sucked the life from us that day, and gave me a nice burn too.
I slept like a rock and woke up at 7:30 to Jackie swearing at the yapping birds, calling them "procreating fiends."
Her word choice is one of the reasons she's one of my three closest friends.
Granted, we'll never know what kind of birds they were--2/3 of the types of birds found in the United States can be found at the Salton Sea, on account of it being one of the only water sources available for miles and miles on the migratory route.
That's the funny thing about the Salton Sea--it's a great irony. A superb juxtaposition. It was never meant to exist. It's a product of an accident that drew life to it, and then quickly began to expel all living things. But through the years of its existence, the sea has become both a life sustainer and a life taker.
The birds wouldn't be able to survive without it, but its salty and toxic nature ultimately takes a few bird lives every year.
There's something beautiful in that deadly juxtaposition, and we got to encounter it on our weekend trip to a very dreary and gorgeous place in southern California.
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| Look how stinking cute we are! And how sunburned my arm is! |
