At the Salton Sea…

I am enjoying this area quite a bit…mostly because of the fine weather. Warm days, cool but not cold nights. And we’ve had a rain storm or two come through. I’ve gotten some work done on my RV too, here’s a link to the latest project, restringing of two Day/Nite Shades. They were in the living room and took me much longer than they should have, for a couple reasons. The article about those specific shades are below that older article of the bedroom shade I had to restring. So scroll down, or better yet, read both articles as they relate.

I also spent half a day visiting three hardware stores trying to find a 1 & 1/2″ plug for the fresh water drain. My Winnie has a drip-drip-drip from a PVC pipe in the middle of the undercarriage that slowly depletes my freshwater tank. It’s a drain that this RV has a slide valve for, used when winterizing the RV. Pull the handle, the slide valve opens, and drains the tank. Except when you close it, it’s suppose to seal. Doesn’t work very good at that. And rather than trying to find and repair whatever is wrong with that slide valve, I’ve just plugged the outlet for now. Had to drive for several miles to find the right sized plug. True value was out, Home Depot didn’t have that size, ended up at a regular plumbing supply house where I finally found the right part. Like I said, took half a day.

After I’d been here a week, I was enjoying myself here enough that I decided to stay another week. No particular reason, I just like it here. This is the area where the Coachella Concert is held each year. My brother Dan used to come down and camp in a tent every year to enjoy the concert but he’s stopped coming because he says the music has gotten too mainstream, with too much hip hop type music. He really goes for off-the-wall style music though. Stuff I can’t stand to listen to.

A couple days ago, I remembered my camera and just cruised around the area near where I’m staying for a look/see. This is the view from the end of the street I’m on.

And up the road a bit is this little store. They really need to dust in there. Not a very pleasant shopping expirience. They have a little tiny Mexican style cafe in there too. If it wasn’t filthy all over the store, I might have tried eating there.

Over a couple country roads and heading back North, there’s this farmers field. One on hundreds in the area. Over there, that’s the Salton Sea.

Just a few blocks from where I’m staying is Desert Shores. A long ago forgotten land development that has seen better days. There are some new homes here and there dotting the landscape but mostly, it looks a lot like this very old and decrepit trailer park that does actually have some spots available for RVs. I didn’t stop to check if they have 50 amp though it doesn’t look like it does.

Look at the size of the swamp cooler on the top of that trailer. And it probably barely keeps up in summer. And a few more miles down the road we have this casino. The Red Earth Casino. Indian casino on Indian land. Kind of a friendly place. I’ve visited a couple times…haven’t gambled there, but did do some shopping. I checked out the restaurant prices and whoa, putting on airs. Way too expensive. I had a bag of nuts in the bar for $1.50. But…they have the absolute best gas and diesel prices for 10’s of miles around.  Lots of room if they need to grow. From the casino parking lot, another view of the Salton Sea.

You might ask why there haven’t been any pictures from the shore of the Salton Sea. Well, so far, even though I’ve followed several signs suggesting a ‘beach’, I haven’t gotten very close to the sea. The roads dead end quite a way short of the water. There was one road I was on very close, and parallel to the sea, with old trailer homes even closer, and I had the window open. And it stunk. Not a fresh sea breeze type smell.

I think in the next couple days, I’ll travel down to the south end and up around the eastern shore to check out that part of the lake. Seems from the maps that it’s more built up there then the western shore. But the smell from the lake when you’re close to it explains why there’s so many flies in the nearby towns. Not many here at the RV park for some reason, but once in awhile I’ll see one or two.

Anyway, thanks for reading!