from Tucson via Borrego Springs to San Diego - Wild Wild West - USA 2022 - 7
05/06.03 - from Tucson via Borrego Springs to San Diego
Today it will be another long drive. Somehow I have to get back to the Pacific and since there is not so much interesting in between, I will make another stop in Borrego Springs like 4 years ago. As if the direct route wasn't already long enough, I'll also make a detour around the Salton Sea. All in all, the drive should take 7.5 hours.
It is 6 o'clock in the morning and I pack my car. The wind has calmed down, but the temperature has dropped to 6°C (43°F). Since it is Saturday morning, I don't have to worry about the usual traffic jams in Tucson and on the way to Phoenix. The ride is pretty straightforward, but the closer I get to the California border, the more the wind picks up. In Yuma, before I leave Arizona, I fill up the car. In California, the gasoline is immediately between 30 and 50% more expensive.
After a few hours of driving, I reach my first two stops: Slab City and Salvation Mountain. Slab City is an alternative living community where people live mainly in RVs. The part of Slab City that is known to a wider audience is Salvation Mountain [↗], a construction by former artist Leonard Knight, who passed away in 2014.
I was at Salvation Mountain 4 years ago and not much has changed. Some newly decorated cars have been added, but the mountain is starting to deteriorate. They have already closed parts of it and the paint is starting to crumble everywhere. I turned around here 4 years ago, but today I want to keep going and see what else is interesting in Slab City.
Honestly, not much. Like Salvation Mountain, Jesus and God are called everywhere, but to me, it looks more like a scene from the Mad Max movies.
So I turn around and continue around the lake. Next stop is Bombay Beach [↗].
In the 1950s, celebrities stayed at the luxury resorts on the Salton Sea. The decline began in the 1970s when a warning was issued that the salinity of the lake would soon no longer allow animal life, which eventually came to happen by the early 1980s.
The most interesting thing (apart from the 60's style billboards) are some art installations on the beach. Theoretically, you can even drive down to the beach by car, and with my Jeep, that probably would have worked. But for what?
By the way, it seems to happen quite often that people get stuck. There are notices whom to call to get help.
The installations are not great art, but they put the normal world in an absurd context with this place. Kind of interesting.
The farther you get to the north of the lake, the greener it gets and I pass some RV parks, although I wonder if anyone really goes swimming in this lake. On the west side of the lake and on the road to Borrego Springs, there are a number of ATVs and SUVs driving offroad. The sand they kick up is picked up by the gusty wind and carried across the road. In some places, you can't see more than 20 yards.
When I arrive in Borrego Springs it is still very gusty and it even starts to drizzle a bit. It's half past one and after checking in at the hotel I eat my salad for lunch, write a bit on this trip report and then decide to see if it makes sense to take photos with all the sand flying around.
It's ok at first - pretty cold because of the wind, but really just a matter of clothing. I start with the area to the left of my hotel. You can drive close to most of the figures. It's off-road, bumpy, and sandy in parts, but most people with passenger cars do it anyway.
Usually, I park my car a bit away from the figure I want to photograph, but of course, I still have to wait until the other cars are out of the picture too.
After a while, I turn around and look for the second area, which is on the other side of the city. In the meantime, the sun has disappeared behind a thick dark cloud. I head to the places I already know, but my enthusiasm is clearly fading. The light is bad, the thick dark cloud on the horizon will prevent a nice sunset and now the wind is also getting stronger and it starts to rain. Tomorrow I will find that it has even snowed in the western mountains. I drive back to the motel and hope that the weather will change overnight.
It is really a pity. I wanted to take some nice sunset and night sky pictures here. I even brought a small LED lamp to light up the figures. But that's the problem with landscape photography. You can plan a lot, but you can't control the weather.
The next morning I leave the motel at 5am. It's still dark, but the sky is cloudless (now I would have liked some clouds 😉) and it's not too windy. I think about where to go and decide on my favorite sculpture, the Scorpion. The sunrise is quite nice, but nothing special. I wait until the sun turns the mountains red, take a few more photos, and then take advantage of the beautiful morning light for a few more sculptures. I skip the ones I know I already have nice pictures of from my last visit and finally return to the motel to make myself something for breakfast. All in all, I was out for 2 hours.
Unfortunately, my back pain returns. For quite a while I had no more problems, but the long rides over the two days seem to have been a bit too much.
The ride today is not too long, but as I pass the village of Ramona halfway, I see some murals and decide to stop and take a walk. I walk up and down the old town, which takes me maybe half an hour. I'm not sure I took great photos, but at least some details are worth capturing. As I continue on, I see that the area I was in is only a small part of the city. On the other side, there are shopping centers, stores, and even an Aldi lined up along the main street.
