I visited The Range on a Saturday night during a local talent show. I was completely surprised by the talent. Many single acts performed, along with newly formed and established bands. If a performer was not up to par, they were quickly booed off the stage and replaced with a new act. However, this only happened once.

While the acts played covers and original music, the audience either took in the scene from dilapidated couches you would normally expect to see sitting next to a garbage dump or from the makeshift dance floor. As the night progressed, those same cushion-less, floral couches became resting spots for those who over-indulged. The whole notion of normalcy soon became much more lenient. Weird things seemed normal, while outlandishly unbelievable things became just slightly odd. Clothing became optional, and couples did not shy away from PDA. Still, the acts kept on playing. I made my way back to camp relatively early, but many stayed until morning. When I awoke, I could still see people dispersing from the venue to haphazardly stumble their way back across the desert to their respective campsites or the nearest bush.

Because of its peculiarity and reputation, Slab City attracts an eclectic group of individuals, including transients, year-round dwellers, and RVs that stay anywhere from a day to entire winters. The city operates much like other cities. You have the “rich” areas (RVs), “poor” areas (primitive campsites), and “middle-class” areas (tents). People are expected to trade goods, food, alcohol, skills, etc. to get what they need. There are also scandals and rumors, and people are run out of town because of these.

I stayed in a campsite with some local, young squatters. I brought beer, so I was pretty much instantly accepted. I spent the day wandering around and chatting with other campers, including a guy who was living in a boat he hauled into the desert from the Salton Sea. I learned that there are members-only coffee shops, a guy who transmits a Slab City radio station playing entire records at a time, and a “club”. There are hot springs, a church, and a drained pool from the military base that is now a skate park.

As day turned to evening, we all sat around a fire and ate pizza rolls made with homemade dough and baked over the fire. People pulled out their instruments, and beers were consumed in preparation for a rowdy night at the local “club”. The musical talent in the “slabs” was astounding.

Once darkness engulfed the desert, flashlights were pulled out, and we all migrated over to “The Range” to take in a talent show. More on that soon.

After I accepted an invitation to spend some time in this elaborate squatters’ camp, I was told to meet my hosts at Salvation Mountain, which, I was told, acts as the entrance to Slab City. I soon pulled up to a colorful “mountain” protruding out of the barren desert and parked my car near cars and trucks matching the decor of the mountain. Thoroughly confusing.

Salvation Mountain was created over many, many years by local resident Leonard Knight. He built the mountain through trial and error, after witnessing his first “mountain” crumble to the ground after 4 years of work, with adobe, straw, and gallons upon gallons of paint donated by visitors. The empty paint buckets are spread all over the site. Salvation Mountain also includes numerous “rooms” that are carved out of the mound and filled with artifacts, murals, and anything else Leonard found and deemed relevant.

Unfortunately, Leonard was recently placed into a care facility for dementia and is no longer adding to his mountain. However, other residents of Slab City watch out for his creation and are committed to maintaining it for future visitors.

Once I thoroughly scoured and photographed the ruins of Bombay Beach, I stopped in the one local bar/restaurant. The Ski Inn has made an appearance on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and is about the only place to socialize in the area. Upon entering through a pair of windowless doors, the scene was exactly what I expected, and I could immediately tell that the people surrounding the long, dated bar had stories to tell. I knew that if they’d let me see through their time and sun-weathered exteriors, I would be able to learn about their journeys to the Salton Sea. These were the people that stayed behind, and I wanted to know why.

After I claimed a seat at the bar and ordered a beer, the two men I was sandwiched between immediately started talking to me. One was a biker, new to the area, and the other, a long-time resident of Bombay Beach. They introduced me to Wendell, the bartender and bar owner. His wife was working the kitchen. Wendell purchased the Ski Inn for a friend, who was supposed to pay him back. That didn’t happen, and now Wendell, in his 80′s, opens the bar around 7 am each morning for the “coffee crowd” and heads home either when someone relieves him of his duties or his last customer leaves.

Of course, all of his customers know each other. The Ski Inn is the town gathering place. It is where the residents come to commiserate, gossip, and convince themselves that Bombay Beach is a great place to live. Mostly, they just wait for an outsider, like me, to enter the bar. This gives them the opportunity to tell jokes; jokes that their fellow residents have probably heard a thousand times.

Wendell sat perched on a stool behind the bar, intently listening to the conversations surrounding him. He perked up when the biker next to me cursed in the middle of a joke. The biker immediately stopped and said, “Sorry, Wendell!” He then looked at me, “Wendell doesn’t like cursing in his bar.” This was the first dichotomy I encountered. I mean, based on first impressions, if there’s any place to curse your brains out, the Ski Inn has to rank pretty highly up there. But, Wendell explained, “Children come here. I have tried to build a family-friendly environment. We don’t need any of that nonsense in here.”

After some time, one of my new friends asked if I could move down a barstool, “You see, Barbara is coming. She always sits in that one.” I moved, expecting a menacing woman-someone bold enough to stake claim to a stool-to take my old spot. This was not the case. Barbara turned out to be an elderly woman who spends most of her days at the Ski Inn. She comes in the morning for coffee, heads home for a nap, and returns in the afternoon for a beer. She drinks her Bud Light out of a glass jar filled to the brim with ice. Barbara is simply a woman of routine.

Within seconds, she started telling me about herself. She moved to Bombay Beach with her husband after their daughters had all moved away. It was to be their dream retirement home, but obviously, those hopes quickly evaporated. Her husband has since passed away, and Barbara’s memory seems to be fading. The people of Bombay Beach watch out for her, and in return, she bakes them all her famous pineapple cake. She also loves her town and believes that all the negativity is propaganda conjured up by the media.

To prove this, she invited me to her home. After a short ride in her golf cart, I found myself in an extremely clean trailer, with decor exactly how it would have been during the Salton Sea’s prime. She was proud of her big kitchen and spacious backyard. In fact, I’m invited to camp out in her yard whenever I find myself back in Bombay Beach. She exclaimed, while looking out her front window, “This view, you can’t beat waking up to this view.”

It was then that I realized, a place truly is what you make it. To the outside world, Bombay Beach seems like something worth tearing down and forgetting about. To us, the people who live in a place like that must be crazy or on drugs or both. However, the residents of Bombay Beach have created a family. While their town continues to decay, they have formed bonds and a mutual understanding. They make few judgements, and they accept and watch out for each other, quirks and all.

Back at the bar, I made my mark, said my goodbyes, and set off for another adventure.

I turned down a neglected side street and started driving toward the water, passing the odd inhabited structure sprinkled between abandoned homes and trailers. Not really knowing what to expect, I parked my car near an opening in a levee and walked up a slight incline. Here, I found a beach littered with ruins of boats and homes half-buried under mud and sand due to flooding caused by the unpredictability of the Salton Sea’s water levels. I started taking photos until I was greeted by two other photographers.

Them: Hey there, why don’t you park your car up here with ours.

Me: Okay?

Them: You do know this is notorious gang territory, don’t you?

With that, I became a bit unsettled, wrapped up my excursion, and left one of the poorest and, now, most dangerous towns in America in my small Mercedes, completely alone with adrenaline rushing. Still, I felt uneasy about how the day ended. Once I arrived back in Palm Desert, I flipped open my computer and started googling terms like “Bombay Beach gang”. I quickly determined that the photographers were completely ill-informed, and I immediately decided to return and finish what I started.

The next day, I pulled back up to the same area and continued snapping photographs of the ruins. Within a few minutes, a teenager and young boy pulled up in a golf cart and enthusiastically welcomed me to town. I flashed them a quick gang sign to let them know I was cool -Not really- They then started wading in the polluted water of the Salton Sea.

The ruins included everything from televisions and computer monitors to baby toys and measuring cups: artifacts from family homes crumbling like the dreams and hopes these people once had for their new lives right on the shore of the “miraculous” Salton Sea. Stuff that has long been neglected and overlooked, much like Bombay Beach itself.

Walking amongst the decay made me want to know more. I wanted to know if these people stayed behind, if they now lived less than a block away over the berm where I had parked my car the day before. Or, if they somehow managed to escape Bombay Beach and make something of their lives elsewhere.

As I stood amongst this odd testament to greed and promises built on poor environmental research, I decided to take it all further than I usually take my day travels; I decided to hang out for awhile and interview some locals to get their perspectives on the area. Mostly, I selfishly wanted to know why they continue to stay in such a bleak, seemingly futureless area. And, that’s exactly what I did. I also made some friends along the way.

Bombay Beach, Part II

I tend to like places with history. Sure, resorts are beautiful, but I love places with a complex background and an interesting story, whether happy or completely depressing. I feel the same about people. During my time in Europe, I was drawn to locations and places that are not immediately found in most guidebooks. Rundown, dilapidated, off-the-beaten-path destinations excite me. They make me reach deeper, dig for more information, and question what made a particular place what it is today. Often, this leads me to another place, which leads me to new acquaintances that I can momentarily bond with over a unique experience that many do not and will not understand. This is exactly what happened in California.

The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake. From afar, the blue water glistens below the silhouettes of nearby mountains. Birds loom above, and it seems like an almost-magical oasis in a desert filled only with vast expanses of nothingness and impoverished towns. That’s what so many tried to make it. It was to become “Palm Springs on the Water”, and in its heyday (1950s and 60s), people and celebrities alike flocked to the miraculous-lake-that-was-never-supposed-to-be.

The Salton Sea of today was formed when the Colorado River flooded in 1905, and over a period of a few years, the newly created waterways settled into the below-sea-level Salton Sink, forming a lake. However, with sporadic inflow and outflow, the lake was an environmental time bomb from the start. Property sold, speedboats raced, and resort towns formed, while all the obvious signs of a major problem were masked by the glamour of it all. As I was told, “In those days, you couldn’t even get your boat on the water. You had to reserve a spot weeks in advance. That parking lot over there was full.”

That “parking lot”, now, is nothing but parched land eroding away, while just a few remaining people have the capacity and willingness to look back and remember what it used to be.

Today, the lake is nothing but a scar, slowly fading, yet visible enough to remind outsiders that something has happened, is happening, there. The lake is slowly shrinking, leaving behind water that is far saltier than an ocean. Most marine life has died off, leaving the banks of the lake littered with dead fish and a funky smell due to bateria levels. It is no longer a vacation destination; only some RVs (snowbirds) and hardy locals regularly inhabit the area. However, with everything that’s stacked against them, they are proud of their lake, their friends, their community. I was immediately accepted into the tight-knit group and shown around.

That type of response is why this day trip turned into an exciting adventure lasting an entire weekend and why I have so much more to write about and share. However, I’ve been apprehensive to start, because I do not know how to accurately describe what I experienced. I do not know how to do those oft-forgotten people justice. Oh well, I’m definitely willing to try.

After Jerome, I finally decided to make my way to Palm Desert:

All of this driving finally landed me here:

Somewhere up this mountain road, buildings began to appear. The buildings soon formed a small town, overlooking the vast valley below. The town was Jerome, Arizona.

I parked my car, wandered around, snapped some photos, and talked with a few of the locals.

I learned that Jerome was established as a mining town in the late 1800s. It soon became a stereotypical Wild West town, complete with outlaws and prostitution. In fact, it was dubbed by a New York newspaper as the “wickedest town in the West”. In 1917, some of the miners went on strike, and the mine owners retaliated by rounding up the suspected troublemakers and deporting them out of town. Despite this deportation, multiple fires, and the subsequent mishandling of these situations by the mine owners, the population of Jerome continued to grow. However, in the 1930s, the price of copper dropped drastically and the mines were soon mined out. In the 1960s, Jerome was designated a Historic District.

Today, a little over 300 people call Jerome home. It receives a decent amount of tourism, but due to its precarious location, this number is kept under control. To me, the city still felt authentic, and I’m very picky about my “tourist destinations” feeling real.

The House of Joy was once a brothel, then a nationally-recognized restaurant. It is now a museum.