THE SLABS CONTINUED.

The "slabs" is called a city because it was one for about 5,000 people at one time. Now, it serves as home to about 200 people, and for them, it is their city. Amenities include a place of worship.


Services.


A few businesses. The Mechanic, Linda, the news editor, and solar Mike are old timers of 25 years or so.


Various clubs regularly meet and/or stop at the slabs. Loners On Wheels, Jim's former club, the WINS, Travel'n Pals. Leo, who we came to see, left early. He told us most of his friends from the Oasis Club are gone. In his early eighties, the newcomers and he don't have much in common.


There is a free shoe shop and a pile of free clothing should you be in need.


A coffee house, organic espresso near the library.


The library hasn't changed much.


I donated a couple of books. They have a two-seater cafe inside, now.


In the morning, after we learned that Leo was okay, we took a walk past the pet cemetery.


I didn't count them, but there is probably 150 graves here. And a lot of love.


We took the same walk we would have taken with Leo and his dogs, had he been here, out by the pits. The first time I visited the slabs, these huge cement bunkers were plain concrete, now all graffittied, and people live inside of them. There are three huge ones like this one.


Whoever lives here roofed over and has an outdoor toilet and septic system and a garden on the right nearby.


One thing Randy complained about and Jim, too, is that Slab City has failed to do something about trash. Gathering it and making trash art is not a complete solution.


But Sandi Andrews has built it into her mud wall. She is allowing it to dry thoroughly.


This is her mud oven where she cooks as much as she can without fuel.


This is her God phone. It helps to have a sense of humor.


She makes her living off of her art work. She has two signs, this one is an effigy of herself.


Her paintings are soft and flowing. She showed me her technique and how she works.


I liked her work and bought a painting. Her work can be described as happy. She worked as a gold miner for seven years before settling in at the slabs. She sells CD's of her mandolin and guitar music.


She has three painted vehicles out front. This is Sandi with "Hannah," mostly driven by her son. She says, I don't go much of anywhere. She invited us to share happy hour with her but when Leo wasn't there, we left early.

We stopped in at Solar Mike's to have him check our battery set-up.


He adjusted it and we decided not to get another panel. Jim had boondocked for six weeks straight and he was worried about the low voltage. All's well. Mike says about three people cause 99% of the trash, here. He calls them strippers. We pushed on and spent the night under a starry sky at The Overlook, near Borego Springs.

ON THE WAY TO SLAB CITY.

Our friend, Randy Vining was parked, along with us, at the Quechan Casino parking lot. I love his blog, that often includes his friends Wayne and Glen. I finally got to meet them. Glenn is a full timer at 44 years old, and produces music with his computer for Hollywood TV movies. Wayne writes a spiritual blog. These guys engaged in some serious philosophical discussions while here. We didn't see much of Randy, but he came to wish us farewell.

Headed for the Slabs, which I hadn't visited since 2008 or 9, we crossed a long stretch of desert. New, on the roadside, what looked like saw horses tied together, are barriers to protect ATV riders from accidentally jumping up onto the roadside and injuring themselves.


Pretty dunes mark our route on highway 8 West, and then later highway 115 West. We passed through the biggest town around here, Brawley, and then the smaller town of Calapatria, population about 7,000 if you include the 4,000 inmates in their prison.


Calapatria has a flagpole 184 feet tall. Their claim to fame, so to speak. The city is 180 feet  below sea level, so their flag will always fly above sea level. We tend to think of them being out in the middle of nowhere. But, high school girls were happily chatting about boys and school and seem very content with their place. Who are we to judge?


Just before you get to the slabs, or Slab City, is the famous Salvation Mountain built by Leonard Knight, who if I'm not mistaken, can no longer attend his mountain. The place is famous all over the world. Movies, books and television programs have been made about his place, but Leonard never changes. He was bullied in school and didn't get much education. His car broke down at this spot and he considered it a message from God and began building his message of love of God. Interesting guy. Couldn't find my pictures of him.


The last time we visited, Leonard was having trouble with vandals stealing his meager funds from him. He was sleeping, then, in one of his vehicles. He built a warren for himself since then.

He would paint over the same areas, over and over again because the desert sun fades the paint. The mountain can be walked on and is solid. The construction to the right was in the beginning phase on our last visit. Love IS universal, he has that right. He is a kind and gentle soul. The place was done with donated paint, much of it lead paint.


And, then, Slab City. This is an old military guard station at the entrance to the city, since it was once a military base. I was trying to explain Slab City to my brother on the phone. He has never been, nor heard about it. He is in a rest home because one of the side affects of open heart surgery is blindness. His vision is impaired; he can't read or even see television clearly. He is suffering from gout and can't go home. Misery city for him, but I can read to him about Slab City on the phone later today. 

The information kiosk is nearby. Randy loves the slabs, and speculates, "Can a random group of people organize themselves into a form of government?"  The answer is yes. They have rules, they live together and work together but do not trammel on another person's rights. An interesting experiment. Randy has found, in his travels, other places that work that way, none quite as big as the slabs.


The kiosk has a message board, and gives you the identification for their radio station.


Under plastic permanent announcements.


Travel N Pals have a sign. I wanted to buy a newspaper, now called a newsletter. It was once a one-pager for ten cents. Linda, the editor wasn't home, but I bought one from her neighbor, Sandi Andrews. A three-pager for $3. Maps, the zip code, where services are located, events at the slabs, dates and times, and the hot news, a guy bit by a rattle snake made it. A well done little paper.


You can hardly read this message from Linda, but live music under the stars at the Range, which is what you might call a night-club.  No music on Mondays, but the stars last night, with no light pollution?  Magnificent diamonds envelope you,  an experience you only get in places like this. Gorgeous.
We were supposed to meet Jim's friend, Leo Perth, but he was MIA. Jim called his cell and his home in Oregon and did not get an answer. Hopefully we will find out he is okay. More on the slabs tomorrow.

WETLANDS DRIVE AND SUPERBOWL.

Just below the prison, an area known as East Wetlands stretches up to the base of a mountain range along the Colorado River.


Wetlands suggest birds to me, but we didn't see any. I expect we would during the great migration from Mexico and South America.


Much of the water here is provided by the Colorado River and flows through man-made canals.

The terrain changed from low brush to high brush and later to the growing fields under lease or private ownership on what was signed as BLM land.


Now that's green and we saw miles of it.


A group harvesting lettuce are probably not interested in Super Bowl Sunday. The boss of this crew whistled at me and indicated that I should not to take pictures of them.


I got to see all that green I was longing to see.


Various colors of green as in broccoli.


Kale.


Purple lettuce, too.


On our previous stay in Yuma, we had grapefruit just like this hanging over the motor home where we were parked. Oranges, too.


This bougainvillea doesn't compare in size to the one we walked past every morning, but there are many beautiful bushes in bloom to enjoy around town.


After our drive, we returned to town and stopped at the VFW to have a beer and a peek at the Superbowl.


We wore our grubbies, knowing we'd have to wash what we wore and take showers to get rid of the smoke. People are nice. Jim befriended Cathy Shrader in the weeks before I arrived and wanted me to meet her. Nice gal, fun to talk to. A widow like me, hesitant about on-line dating as I was.


The VFW was set up for a party, but the game hadn't started.


I jokingly asked a woman who she was rooting for. Her answer was this. We visited for an hour and left. We never did see anything but pre-game talk on the big screen television. Before going to bed, I called my kids to see who won.