Salton Sea in California

I didn't get to post Friday because we were on the road for seven hours. It wasn't suppose to be any more than a four hour drive but while Joyce was driving, I was checking the reviews of the campground and it was listed as a dump.
So we tried another campground but they had no vacant sites for dog owners. So onward we pressed until we were at our Saturday destination of the Salton Sea.
We are staying at the Bashford Hot Mineral Spa campground. It has hot mineral spring tubs outside that were really nice after a long days ride. The pool is also heated, and has a spa next to it.

We got an early start exploring the area and drove down to the Salton Sea which is about three miles away. The problem is there are only certain areas where you can get close to the water.

Found an area where we could park.

Looks more like the ocean

Those are the Santa Rosa Mountains on the other side. We continued our ride for a little while and came upon some nice state campgrounds where we could dry camp on the beach for $5. Guess where we are going tomorrow? From the Salton Sea, we turned and headed in the other direction towards the town of Niland. We were told of the place called Slab City. This was an old military base that was abandond after WWII then taken over by Snowbirds and such. We were told that Patton train his troups here but I was not able to confirm this. The land is desert like so I can believe it.
After passing by the guard shack above, we stopped at Salvation Mountain

This was all constructed by one man. His name is Leonard Knight and he is 77 years old. Leonard has been here many years working on his art.

Leonard's Truck

Leonard's Tractor
Leonard's Mountain
More of Leonard's work.
Inside one of the structures which are made from straw bales and adobe clay.

Leonard
Us at the top of the mountain
Joyce with Leonard. He gave her a DVD of his work.

The Mountain

Follow the Yellow Brick Road!

Video of inside of one of the buildings

After viewing all of Leonards work, we continued on to Slab City. We did see some unusual sights like this car. Here's another

Same truck

Then we continued on to a place where we could see some mud pots. These are areas where the the water from the Salton Sea has dried up. No one knows how old the mud pots are. There were about ten of them of various sizes. Here, Joyce looks inside one of the mud pots only to have it burb mud on her pants.

Mud Pots

On our way back to the campground, we passed what looked like an old abandond mud bath. It must have been a grand place in it's day. Below are the outside bath areas.
As you can see from the ground, the mud and water contain a lok of minerals.
This is whats left of one portion of the original building. I was not able to find any history on this place.