Places That Were

I awoke Thursday morning in a parking lot overlooking the beach. It had been too dark the previous night to see what a perfect spot it was.

I got outside and walked around. The beach was littered with remnants of small structures.



Recurring floods in the 1960s caused massive amounts of property damage, driving away many residents. Tropical storms in in 1976 and 1977 and the catastrophic flooding they caused broke the spirits of those who remained.

Pretty much everything was covered in a salty crust. Because Salton Sea sits at such a low elevation, it has no outlets, which means the salt carried in by runoff has nowhere to go. At 44 parts per thousand, water has a salt concentration 25% greater than the Pacific Ocean.



Near the water, instead of sand, the beach was a bed of fish bones.


Massive fish and bird die-offs occurred in the '90s.

* 1992: an estimated 150,000 water birds died. The cause has never been definitively identified, but contaminants in the water are suspected.
* 1996: Botulism from agricultural runoff killed over 1000 brown pelicans in the largest documented die-off of an endangered species. It also killed 15 to 20 percent of the western population of white pelicans.
* 1999: In August, 7.6 million tilapia and other fish species died when an algae bloom severely depleted the oxygen levels in the sea.

As I headed over to look at a piece of machinery lying on the beach, caked in salt and rusted all to hell, a guy in a pickup drove up to it first. He glanced at me nervously a few times as I walked up, then asked me it was okay for him to be there. I almost laughed because I'd been a little nervous too, unsure if the beaches were privately owned.

Such was the case with many of the places I intended to visit. So I did my best to keep a low profile, dressing in dull colors and not carrying anything that could be used for vandalism. I carried myself with an air of confidence that I hoped would make it look like I belonged there, or at least had no idea I was trespassing.

The guy with the pickup was in his early thirties, as was I, and had my first name. James told me he lived in Arizona and drove big rigs for a living. He said he was checking out the Salton Sea so he could cross it off his bucket list, and that he had left home early that morning without telling his girlfriend. He spoke in a boastful tone without any indication of anxiety or guilt, and I figured he was probably exaggerating, or else had a very dysfunctional relationship.

James commented that the beach didn't smell as bad as he'd heard it would. I agreed, having noticed the same thing. It made me sad to think of how people had once flocked to Salton Sea's shores to experience the flourishing vacation paradise, but now the only visitors came to see the destruction and decay that had befallen it. And James and I stood there casually reinforcing the region's sad new identity as a place that was.

After he drove off I got back in the car and worked out a tentative route for the day. I originally thought I'd explore the Salton Sea on the first day, and then head to the ghost town of Amboy on day 2. But the beauty of the sea and abundance of abandoned places around it convinced me to slow my pace.

I decided to drive clockwise around the Salton, checking out as many places as I could before it got dark, and hopefully be ready to head East in the morning. I drove over the dike that protects Bombay Beach's homes from flooding, and got my first view of the town in daylight.

Two women stood outside a badly vandalized house, snapping photos of the graffiti-covered walls while their car idled nearby. I looked down the unpaved road and saw that nearly all of the houses had smashed windows and were heavily tagged with spray paint. It was strange to think that those vandalized shells had once been coveted vacation homes, built along the road closest to the beach.




I drove through the devastated neighborhood, where the majority of homes appeared to be vacant. Some had been left in a hurry. Clothes lay scattered across a rotting floor, a couch with three broken legs sat decomposing against a living room wall. There was even a dusty box of macaroni and cheese inside one of the kitchen cabinets.



I headed down toward Niland, at the southeastern end of sea. There were a few interesting sights on the way.


At the outskirts of Niland I stopped to check out a big abandoned building that might have once been a store. I hadn't heard anything about it during my research, and was excited to find another awesome site by accident. After I parked, I heard the echoing footsteps of someone running inside the building. I figured it was probably someone who wasn't supposed to be there, thinking I'd come to kick them out. I made sure I had my pepper spray handy and went inside.




There were a couple of guys, one in his 40s and missing all his front teeth, the other and a skinny dude in his 20s. Both of them were wide-eyed with huge black pupils, even though it was a bright day. I acted casual so they wouldn’t be put on edge, and made it obvious I was just there to take pictures of the place. The younger guy proudly pointed out a mural he had painted of a fish smoking a cigarette.


I asked the young guy where he lived, and he pointed to a well-hidden ramshackle structure he built out of wooden planks and sheet metal. I felt bad for him, so I offered to buy him lunch. He was extremely grateful. We went to a place called Buckshot Café, the only diner nearby. He told me a few stories about the difficult life he'd led, including a time he'd been stabbed in the neck, and showed me a nasty scar as proof. He said he used to do a lot of drugs, but claimed he had become a lot more responsible lately because he wanted to provide a better example for the daughters he had fathered. He had no job, but rode around on his bike, collecting cans and copper to redeem for cash.

Niland was full of abandoned buildings and run-down homes that were still occupied.

A fire had destroyed all but the walls of these shops

An old gas station

This "Cafe" was actually full of rusty old machine parts and other junk

I wanted to check out the inside of this magnificent old building, but was deterred by the threatening snarls of a dog, which probably belonged to a squatter who had taken up residence inside.

Tempted as I was to explore the whole town, I knew I had to be moving on if I wanted to finish exploring the Salton Sea area before the day was done. So I headed east to check out Salvation Mountain and Slab City.

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By the time I got to Salton Sea's North Shore I only had a few hours of daylight left. I hadn't considered how early the sun sets in late February, but for the rest of the trip I made sure to keep it in mind.

I was still a few miles from the first point on my map, the old yacht club at North Shore Beach, when I saw an abandoned concession stand. I pulled onto the cracked pavement of the empty parking lot to get a closer look.

The sight of this place awoke in me a primal craving for ice cream.

It was tightly boarded up, so I wasn't able to glimpse the inside.

Not long after I got back on the road, I came to a lonely intersection with an abandoned auto repair shop and liquor store.


The repair shop was locked and the windows were boarded up pretty tight, but the liquor store was wide open, with no fences or signs to deter trespassers. There was more to the building than I had first realized. The ground level was divided into a liquor store and a video rental shop.


The shelves, counters and refrigerated cases were still inside, but badly mangled.



Stairs in the back led up to two single-bedroom apartments, side by side with a shared porch area.


The place was pretty torn up, probably by scavengers looking for copper, but it seemed like it had once been a great setup for a person just out of school looking for easy work and a place to stay.





I arrived at the North Shore of the Salton Sea just as the sky had begun to darken. I drove past an abandoned motel, but didn't explore the grounds.


As if the signs weren't an effective enough deterrent, a dog barked frantically at me from one of the dilapidated houses down the street.

I parked the car and walked around a bit.


Further along the shore I looked for the abandoned yacht club, but was surprised to find that it had been renovated and converted into a community center.


A man and woman sat on a bench overlooking the water while two little boys ran and played on the manicured lawn. It sucks that I'd never get to explore the old yacht club, but it's nice to see a long abandoned site cleaned up and put to constructive use in an area that so badly needed it.

I watched the sun set over the silvery waters while smears of purple and orange sky blanketed the horizon.

It reminded me of a snowy mountain lake, which is ironic because it's over 200 feet below sea level, the second lowest point in California. The frost-like crust along the shore is a thick layer of salt, deposited by the extremely saline water.

In the 1950s and early '60s, people had high hopes for the Salton Sea area. As California's largest lake, it was a popular resort destination, its shore punctuated by beaches, marinas, and a handful of major settlements.

Half a century later, quite a few artifacts from that optimistic era still remained. And the high salt content of the sea had weathered them in interesting ways.

Grids of cracked roads cut into the surrounding desert, the remains of housing developments that never came to fruition. Telephone lines snaked past empty plots to reach the scattered homes that stood like teeth on a rotting gum. Quite a few houses were still occupied, but not in great condition.


I can only imagine how disheartening it must be to watch your neighbors and friends move away. And to watch helplessly as the windows of the empty homes are smashed and the walls tagged with spray paint.

The people who still lived there surely had interesting stories to tell, and I wanted to hear at least a couple of them before I moved on.

It was completely dark outside by the time I rolled into Bombay Beach. I decided to check out the Ski Inn, one of only two bars in town.

Here's what it looks like in the daylight. I'm pretty sure its claim of being world famous is a bit of an exaggeration.

There were about half a dozen people at the bar when I got there, and that number kept pretty steady until closing time. I sat down at the bar next to a guy in his late 50s, eating dinner and reading a book. We got to talking and he told me he's an avid road tripper and had been driving all around the country since he retired, checking out the most interesting bars and restaurants in every town he stopped at. He had a spacious van with a tall ceiling, a bed, and a Yeti cooler, which he raved about. He said he paid $400 for the cooler, which can store ice for nearly a week. He was an interesting guy, who had lived in Rhodesia for a few years in the early '70s.

I talked to a few locals, all of whom were quite friendly. One woman who looked to be in her 70s, but had the energy of someone much younger, talked about how much she loved living in Bombay Beach. She found it peaceful and enjoyed swimming in the salty water and watching the beautiful sunsets.

The bartender told me of some nearby places I might want to check out, and then gave me directions to a spot along the shore where I could park for the night. Miles from any major city, the night was black and I could see every star in the sky. Satisfied with Day 1 of my road trip, and excited for the days to come, I slept well that night.

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