The weather here has once again settled into a very familiar pattern – sunny and warm! Paulette and I were up and around pretty early Thursday morning, 6:30am, and the skies were already clear and blue for as far as we could see. After our normal morning routine, we decided to take a drive down to a place we’ve been hearing about around here for the last 3 years – Slab City!
Just a couple of the signs welcoming everyone to Slab City |  |
Slab City or, as it is commonly called, The Slabs is located 4 miles east of Niland, CA on the east side of the Salton Sea. It’s 85 miles from our RV Park and it took us a about 90 minutes to reach Niland where we turned left on Main St. and then drove 3 miles out into the Desert.
This is Salvation Mountain and it dominates the Slab City landscape
The entrance to Slab City is impossible to miss mostly because of the colorful Salvation Mountain perched right on the outskirts. This mountain is really a small hill approximately 40 ft. high and it is completely covered in ‘60’s style acrylic paint, concrete and adobe. It is decorated with dozens of Bible verses. This mountain is an ongoing project of over 2 decades by permanent resident Leonard Knight.
Salvation Mountain is like a psychedelic trip back thru the ‘60’s
When we first saw Salvation Mountain, it looked like something out of Disneyland – a psychedelic version of Disneyland though. There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the colors, it’s almost as if they used whatever wild paint color they had available at the time.
For some reason I kept hearing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Slab City is used by RV’ers and squatters from all over North America. It began as the the old abandoned Camp Dunlap Navy base used in World War II. All the buildings have been leveled and only the slab floors remain, thus the name Slab City. A group of servicemen remained after the base closed, and it has been inhabited ever since.
There were lots of RV’s parked out in the desert at Slab City
There is no cost to stay at The Slabs and you can choose to park at will anywhere in the roughly 640 acres of desert. The camp has no electricity, no running water or other services so many campers use generators or solar panels to generate electricity. There is a dump station at Niland fairgrounds and the charge is $3.00.
Looking across the Salton Sea from the eastern shore near Niland
After walking around Salvation Mountain and then driving around looking at the boondockers, we drove back to Niland and then headed for home. Along the way, we stopped and walked down to a beach on the Salton Sea. This is a completely landlocked salt water lake but that’s a whole nuther story!
We stopped at the Oasis Date Palm Gardens for a great Date Shake!
We also stopped at the Oasis Date Palm Gardens for a date shake, it was terrific and one of the best shakes I’ve ever had – the kind you have to use a spoon with. They also had a “date tasting room” that was kind of neat. Paulette ended up buying a box of dates there.
I never realized there was more than one type of dates
We got back to our RV Park just before 3pm and since it was a hot, sunny day, that left just enough time for a trip up to the pool for a swim. We had spaghetti for dinner using some frozen spaghetti sauce we had brought with us from home. No plans yet for Friday – maybe just hang around here.
Have a great Friday, and thanks again for visiting!
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