Onions, Jesus, Birds & A Big Telescope
April 26, 27 & 28 2024 – Leapin’ Lizards RV Ranch, Ocotillo Wells, California
Yep. It’s a three day entry. We’re in Ocotillo Wells because it is midway between four places we want to visit; 1) the onions field is Brawley where Anastasia and John do their office jobs for part of the year, 2) Salvation Mountain, East Jesus and Slab City, 3) The Sono Bono Wildlife Refuge on the Salton Sea, and 4) the 200″ Hale Telescope at Palomar Mountain. So let’s get started.
April 26, 2024
Onions
We stopped by the Hall of the Onion King and Queen in Brawley, CA they gave us the Royal tour of the building plus a field trip out to the onion fields. (susan here: interestingly the field didn’t have an overwhelming smell of onions. That came later in the warehouse.) First a tractor drags a bar under the onions, cutting the roots and elevating them slightly off the ground. They stay here, drying out, for several days.
Next we find farm workers picking them out of the ground, using a knife to cut the roots from the bulb and place them in burlap bags. Some workers live in the area permanently. Others live there seasonally and others commute in from Mexicali or Calimexi (look at the google maps). They get to the fields around 2AM so they can do much of the work before the heat gets too bad. We didn’t get pictures of it but the same kinds of lights that light up the roads for highway night work light up fields for the farm workers.
The onions stay in the bags for several days, continuing to dry out. Then are they loaded into totes in flatbed trucks and get graded for size. We’re a little unclear on this step. We did see tractor trailers hauling totes around though, so we know it happens.
We had a great lunch with the kids. Then we set out to the south east corner of the Salton Sea to the small town of Niland, CA. But before we left we got farm fresh souveniers!
Salvation Mountain, East Jesus and Slab City
Salvation Mountain is a hillside visionary environment created by local resident Leonard Knight (1931–2014) in the California Desert area of Imperial County, north of Calipatria, northeast of Niland, near the Slab City squatter/art commune, and several miles from the Salton Sea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_Mountain
We’re not wearing pirate hats. It was very windy when we got there. (susan here: that’s the thing about the desert. Not much wind early on but it almost always picks up, sometimes to 40-50 mph. Often it’s been 15-20 mph by 1 or 2 in the afternoon. You’d think the wind would be refreshing. It’s not. It’s more like a blast from your oven.
Basically, Mr Knight started building the mountain, supported by bales of hay and scrap materials and then covered it in paint and bible verses.
This is the culmination of an intense personal religious journey that few mortals will ever consider or experience. It started as a temporary monument to God’s love in 1984 by Leonard Knight and grew into the worldwide phenomenon you see before you.
Born on November 1, 1931 in Shelburne Falls, Vermont, Leonard found “religion” mid-life; he found frustration as well. All religions were too complicated for Leonard. He saw it all very simply: repent to Jesus Christ and be forgiven of your sins. His struggle for a simple faith took him across the United States to end up here in Niland; he never left. For just under 30 years, without the benefits of electricity or running water, Leonard passionately labored daily to create a message for the world to hopefully see: “God Is Love”.
Embarrassed to call himself an artist, Leonard perfected his artistic technique using only what was at hand, what he could scrounge at the local dump and what was donated by the faithful or the curious.
From a plaque on the site
Leonard left the mountain November of 2011 and at the age of 82, went to meet his Mentor on February 10, 2014.
The place is visually stunning and also quite sad. It should be obvious—bales of hay covered in paint are not the best building materials. Notice how part of the painted mountain has just fallen off.
We’ve seen many YouTube videos of Salvation Mountain, sadly, much of it is falling down and therefore off limits. You can’t climb the stairs to the top anymore and it’s unsafe to go in any of the rooms.
You really don’t want to go inside. Even if you ignored the danger of collapse the smell of mildew was strong whenever you got near the fences keeping you out of the danger zones. (susan here: I’m not sure how they will keep it propped up. Eventually it will collapse. I’m glad I got to see and experience most of it.)
It was still pretty cool to see one man’s vision. A group of volunteers take care of the place and donations are cheerfully accepted but not required.
We passed by many art cars (and trucks!) on the way out.
Slab City, The Last Free Place
Slab City, also called The Slabs, is an unincorporated, off-the-grid alternative lifestyle community consisting largely of snowbirds in the Salton Trough area of the Sonoran Desert, in Imperial County, California. It took its name from concrete slabs that remained after the World War II Marine Corps Camp Dunlap training camp was torn down. Slab City is known for attracting people who want to live outside mainstream society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_City,_California
We immediately drove by The Range, a bar/nightclub that we saw featured in a YouTube video. They have live music on the weekends.
There was a small amount of art.
We tried to find the Library, there were signs, but they petered out. So we drove around the slabs, which were mostly vacant of people. Oh, there were signs of life, but many of the campers were gutted and abandoned, or burnt to the ground. (Ominous music plays, read the link below for an explanation, hint, it’s not an accident.)
We’ll admit it. Slab City was a bit of a disappointment. Sure, you can live away from society, but do you have to leave so much trash around? Sorry, we never thought to take pictures of garbage dumps.
Right before we left, we thought it give it one more pass and we found East Jesus!
East Jesus
First, was the House of Dots, an art installation made up of 5 trailers.
We didn’t stop and go in. There was a vibe we didn’t quite like. While writing this blog Susan was able to put it to words, it felt like a zoo exhibit and she wasn’t sure who was the exhibit. (susan here: I had looked forward to visiting this place but I got a really, really weird vibe while driving around. I was happy to leave.)
Have read A Bad Thing Haunts Slab City if you want to hear more about it, it isn’t all nice.
Past House of Dots we came to a large art installation. It even had marked parking spaces! Once again, we just didn’t feel welcome. Nothing in particular happened but trust your gut as they say. But the art looked weird but still creative.
This next photo shows the “main” installation which includes the bowling alley.
Mud Pots, the Dormant Volcano and the Salton Sea
Your intrepid bloggers took one for the team. We needed to trespass to see the mud pots. The whole area is geothermically active but no longer active volcanically. The Salton Buttes are volcanoes in the geothermal field of the same name.
They don’t look like too much from the road, but when you walk among them it dawns on you how other worldly this place is. First, the ground is soft, you sink in ever so slightly. It feels soft but firm although your boot leaves deep tracks like would happen in an inch or so of fresh snow. You’re walking on salt flats of the Salton Sea that are probably toxic. (susan here: Probably? Are toxic.) It was still totally worth the five minutes we were there.
That water was bubbling!
In the background you can see of one of the 10 geothermal energy plants in the area. There is also a lithium mine nearby.
We left the mud pots and mud volcanoes behind and went to look for some wetlands. Of course we stopped to look for birds because we are currently in the Sono Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge! We found 3 life birds there, the Western Sandpiper, the very beautiful American Avocet and the adorable Black-necked Stilt. Whoopee!
Check out the hunk of rock in the front, that’s obsidian! Can you see those strange ridges?
Here’s a side view.
We found a plaque or brochure or website somewhere describing this. It is part of a dust mitigation project. I guess the tall wall act like snow fences in New England. The Salton Sea is full of stuff you don’t want to breathe and it is receding, exposing even more toxic dust.
What a fun place to be. (not!)
We drove through a mostly decrepit campers along with a few “newer” ones to get to the volcano. It wasn’t clear if it was abandoned, as are many of the Salton Sea “attractions” or just in stasis until the snowbirds return. By the looks of things it makes us think it isn’t 100% abandoned.
The volcano, well, it wasn’t much to write home about. Susan channeled her inner volcano goddess. (susan here: actually it was so windy I hoped I could put my arms out and fly!)
Of course we had to drive to the end of the boat ramp. We wanted to go farther but that wasn’t to be for water was a long, long way away. You can just barely see it in this picture.
It was getting late and we had about an hour’s drive back to the RV so we headed home.
April 27, 2024
Paul really wanted to see the onions being loaded onto the truck however the truck showed up at 8AM. That was way too early for him. It was gone by the time we got there. We stopped by anyways to see what was up.
That’s a LOT of onions! This refrigerated room was maybe 1/10th full 24 hours ago, now it was mostly full. The kids cautioned us where to walk so we wouldn’t get run over by a forklift.
They took us out back where the onions were being re-stacked. They are stacked haphazardly in the field because it doesn’t matter, they can only go so high or they’ll fall off the truck. They are restacked carefully when they reach the refrigerated warehouse. This truck contains the field stacked pallets. One more to go!
Susan and I headed out for lunch leaving the kids to work. On a Saturday meant getting paid to do nothing until all the onions were done so they could do inventory. They worked waited 7+ hours that day, they had to be in early for the trucks and wait until late. We had Mexican food.
Paul got to choose between two fish dishes, one with jalapeños and one that was listed as hot, el Diabla, it said. He choose the normal one and said it must be el Diabla hot. He loved it but it was way hotter than he normally likes. Susan had Huevos Rancheros. It looked nothing like what she’s had in the past and it could have passed for soup. She said it was pretty awful. “I ate it because I paid for it and I was hungry.” Now there’s a 1 star 5 star review! (susan here: 0 of 5 stars and a “don’t recommend”. I expected something like this but what I got was more like watered down refried beans. It was difficult to even find the egg!)
We were heading to the refuge to birdwatch when Paul spotted something. It was a Burrowing Owl! He was pleased as punch to see a bird that Susan missed. Paul is getting better at spotting birds but Susan has eagle eyes when spotting birds. We’re not going to put up pictures of all our life birds, but this guy was just too cute.
The Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge visitor center was fun, we talked with two volunteers about what birds were in the area. We mentioned the owls we had seen on the way in and they told a good story about some birders who had spent a lot of time on the trails trying to find that owl, they told them to “just drive up and down the road.” and of course they found them.
The 1 mile out and back (so 2 miles) walk was flat, hot and had very little shade. At the halfway point where we thought we might see water, well, we didn’t. So we turned back. We did get a white-faced Ibis (on the way to the Visitors’ Center) and a Verdin on the trails. The Verdins were vocal and everywhere. But they are small, and disappear fast if you see one otherwise they’re in some tree tweeting away and you can’t find them. We were very happy to grab that one! That’s three more life birds for the books.
We drove to another lookout which was on the the way home didn’t see much in the way of birds or water. Ironically, a 25 year old plaque talked about how much of the SBSSWR was now underwater because of the rising waters. Update the plaque, the water is going away!
On the way back to the campground we passed the Republic of Slowjamistan again.
Paul was thinking this was one of the sovereign citizen nut jobs (really, if you haven’t heard of them, go to YouTube, they’re worse than the “flat earthers”.) But, Susan Googled him. He’s Randy Williams, a DJ from Los Angeles who goes by the stage name R Dub!. He’s been to all 193 nations of the UN and bought the land after visiting another micronation in Dayton, NV. As far as we could tell it’s a party place in the desert. And the party was on!
Yes, that is the Slowjamistan firetruck, it says so on the side. Off to the side is their Border Patrol, a little hut with a gate and everything.
The campground is near the Ocotillo Wells Recreation Area. It’s an off roader and buggy paradise as well as camping on BLM desert lands. We saw a sign for wildlife viewing, and we have a Jeep, so why not go on adventure?
5 or 10 miles later all we’d seen was a lot of sand, some pit toilets, and and a few campgrounds. But no wildlife.
April 28, 2024
The Hale Telescope
It was their day off so Anastasia and John joined us for the visit to the Hale Telescope. The road out was beautiful but hilly.
The road up to the telescope 11.5 miles of narrow pavement, a big elevation climb and a lot of switchbacks. Did we mention there are no guard rails to speak of? Motorcyclists would pass you on curves with double yellow lines with their knees just about touching the pavement!
From the parking lot we could hear Mountain Chickadees but just couldn’t see him. (susan here: Those little birds are hard to see and even if you do find them they’re on the move all the time!)
The gift shop had a small museum section but it was also a gift shop! Paul had left home with only a single hoodie and that’s not enough for 2-3 months of travel. It was going to be cold inside the dome. Anastasia was not dressed for the cold so she got her dad’s thin hoodie while Paul got the new, thick, warm one.
The dome did not disappoint, it was big, white and huge.
This is how the dome rotates, on what look like railroad wheels. Which makes sense since the dome weighs about a billion tons. We can’t remember exactly how many tons, but it was a lot. Way more than anyone would have guessed.
But like the locomotive turntable. It was well balance and required very little power. I think it was two 7 horsepower electric motors which spun what looked like passenger car tires!
Here’s the telescope!
Note, the telescope is pointing up, the 200″ mirror is that thing at the bottom. Those other huge tubes are part of the equatorial mount which rotates opposite to the Earth’s rotation so the telescope points at the same part of the sky as the Earth turns.
One cool thing is that the telescope is still relevant today, even with the bigger scopes in Chile or the smaller ones in orbit, the Hale telescope does science about 300 days a year. Paul could talk hours about this telescope but he won’t so he’ll stop here.
Next we go down the scary road, see all the switchbacks?
We stopped off in the town of Borrego Springs for a very good but expensive lunch. It supposedly had a lot of sculptures. We found only one of them. We did stumble into a community garden that was really nice.
But it was wicked hot outside and the sun was really strong. When we were heading out of town of course we passed the sculpture gardens. There were a lot of sculptures. But we were all zonked and continued home.
Life Birds: 6 (Western Sandpiper, American Avocet, Black-necked Stilt, Burrowing Owl, Whites-faced Ibis, Verdin)