BMW K 1600 GT Blog: 20170305 - Salton Sea, Slab City, Salvation Mountain

I have to apologize to both of my loyal readers. I haven't blogged in a long time. My riding has suffered because I've gone back to school. Yes. I am pursuing my DSc. at Capitol Technology University. It is taking up all of my time. I barely have time to ride at all. I need to plan for time to ride and the only opportunity is if I get a break in assignments.

So, it just so happened that Paul pinged me and wanted to know when I could do a ride. It worked out that I could afford to take a day off from my school work, so we planned for Sunday. Paul invited John and he was able to join us. John asked if we wanted to go out to the Salton Sea, Slab City and Salvation Mountain. Paul and I hadn't been there, so the venue wasn't set. We decided on an early start - 6am at Denny's in Beaumont.

I'm up at 4am every morning to study, so meeting at 6 was particularly easy for me. We had breakfast and off we went. We were at Salton Sea after a short ride on the big slab. The Salton Sea is a man made lake. It happened after a dam on the Colorado river broke and flooded the area. At this point, there's all kinds of fertilizer and whatnot in there. It stinks and I understand you could float an egg on the water. There was nobody on the lake. It was very windy. We were holding about 3-5 degrees of lean to stay straight on the road. We pulled over at Salton City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_City,_California), population 3700, to walk down to see the lake. Did I mention that it was windy? The water looked like we were looking at the ocean with white capped waves. I was amazed that the population was that high. I think there is one street that is a loop and I didn't see another soul.

After Salton City, we went to Slab City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City,_California). This is a camp ground more than a city. If you're interested in living off the grid, this is the place! You're only 4 miles from civilization, but there is no running water or amenities of any kind.

Salvation mountain(http://www.salvationmountain.us/) was the next stop. I'll let some pictures speak for themselves.