Exploring the Salton Sea, 2021

We wrote this when it was almost Thanksgiving 2021 and we were on a 3 day road trip in our “new to us” motorhome.  We were doing a shakedown cruise to detect and then repair any problems with the motorhome before we start our trip home to Florida in the Spring. 

We left the RV park we were staying at in Hemet, California and drove past Palm Springs to the Salton Sea where we were staying at the Fountain of Youth Spa and RV Park.   

This is a remote area way out in the desert.  The RV park is built on top of natural hot springs and those hot springs feed the several swimming pools and hot tubs at the park.  The swimming pools are a very comfortable temperature and the various hot tubs are varying temperatures from pretty warm to the pool called the “Lobster Pot”, which is very hot.  There are also men's and women’s steam rooms that are heated naturally from the hot springs.  This is an internet picture of the lobster pot with the swimming pool in the background. 

We spent the first day of our road trip driving to Fountain of Youth and getting set up in our campsite.  Then we visited all of the hot tubs and had a very relaxing afternoon.

The next day, we drove south about 1/2 hour to an old, abandoned World War II Marine Corps base.  When the Marines left, they tore down all of the buildings and left just the concrete foundation slabs.  They also left 2 concrete guard shacks on the entrance road and they are still there to greet you as you enter the abandoned base.

That whole area is now called Slab City and is occupied by an off the grid group of people who have set up a very primitive community.

On the road just before you get to Slab City, there is a large mound in the desert that was once owned by a man named  Leonard Knight who envisioned and then built Salvation Mountain.

We had never heard of this before, but as we came around a bend in the road, there it was and we had to stop and investigate. 

We walked all over the area and marveled at all of the work that went into creating this tribute in the middle of nowhere.

The amount of work that went into plastering the whole mountain in adobe and then painting it was amazing!

After visiting the Salvation Mountain, we continued a short distance down the road to Slab City.

As we drove all around the dirt roads of Slab City, we enjoyed looking at all of the unique campsite outposts that the Desert Rats had produced.  

They were very organized in an unorganized situation.  There were probably hundreds of individual campsites.  Each one seemed to have staked out their territory and then filled it with all kinds of junk and treasure.

The interesting thing about the whole thing was that they all seemed to respect each other's space.  Each site might have been occupying an acre of ground but the neighbors respected that and piled all of their stuff quite a ways away so that they weren't crowding each other.

There were quite a few people wandering around their own plots and they were quite colorful.  

We were reluctant to get out of our car and walk among them or to photograph them because they really seemed to want to be "off the grid", so here are a few pictures from the internet to give you a flavor of Slab City.

Almost every spread had a large amount of furniture scattered around the yard.  We figure that since it is probably 180º in the shade there in the summer time that they spend a lot of time outside.

We also couldn't find any source for fresh water anywhere except in the nearby irrigation canal and we suspect that they all must have a system of penetrating the fence that guards the canal so that they can syphon water into portable tanks that they then transport back to their homestead.  We also didn't see any way for them to dispose of their sewage so we hope that didn't go into the canal!

We did see a few solar panels at a few spots but it must be really dark at night or very noisy with generators.

These don't look like generator people so we are going with very dark.

It could be that they use a lot of candles but we know how that can end.

A Slab City free spirit.

I guess every year they have a Prom and these people were all dressed up to go to the Prom!

This is the Prom Queen.

When we left Slab City, we drove back to the shoreline of Salton Sea where we found the small almost abandoned town of Bombay Beach.

Bombay Beach used to be a resort town on the edge of the shoreline of Salton Sea but the waterline has receded due to evaporation and now the town is about 1/4 mile from the water's edge.  It is also the lowest elevation community in the United States at 223 feet below sea level.  It has a population now of about 400 people.

The Salton Sea is really a large lake that was formed accidentally in 1905 when an irrigation canal that had been dug in 1900 to provide water to the Imperial Valley agricultural area failed and spilled its water into the lowest area around.  The area where the water ended up was about 225 feet below sea level and became known as the Salton Sea.

After about 2 years of the canal sending all of its water into the Salton Sea, they finally repaired it and that ended the inflow of water into the Salton Sea.

Now, the Salton Sea gets its water from runoff from the nearby farmers' fields or from runoff from the few rains that fall here in the desert.  

As the population of California continues to grow, water is becoming a very precious commodity and so it is becoming more and more expensive for the farmers in the area to irrigate their crops.  For that reason, instead of flooding their fields every year like they did in the past, they have developed very effective drip and spray irrigation systems that use only the exact amount of water that the crops need to thrive.  

That, plus the extended drought that California has been experiencing has prevented fresh water inflow into the Salton Sea and has resulted in the steady decline in the surface area of the sea and the retreat of the shoreline.

As the shoreline receded and the salinity of the Salton Sea increased, Bombay Beach was almost abandoned and became a ghost town.

Then, around 2018, people began to drift back to Bombay Beach and a slight renaissance is beginning.  It seems that intermingled between the abandoned and somewhat bombed out old structures of the town, people are rehabilitating some of the abandoned buildings and the town is becoming somewhat of an eccentric artist colony.

We drove up and down all of the streets, about 20 square residential blocks, and saw quite a few interesting sights.

This abandoned home had a sign proclaiming "Bombay Beach TV's" and we think they were right.

We don't know what this is.

Since you can't get your boat to the water any more, this might be the only alternative.

This must be just in case the water level rises.

We felt that this was the winner of all the art attempts in town.  We can't figure out how they were able to bend the fuselage so smoothly.

This was our pick for second place.  It must have taken a huge amount of work.

After Bombay Beach, we headed back to Fountain of Youth RV Park but before we arrived, we stopped off at their golf course for a photo op.

They have what they call "Desert Golf", which is like golf but without grass.  You tee off on a piece of carpet and from then on, you are in the dirt and rocks.  

The good news is that they supply the clubs, which are just about beaten to death.  Suzie warming up.

Pay attention on this one.  She went from here . . . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To here!!!!!!!

This is the Salton Sea.

That is about it for now.  We are back in Hemet and we should be here for a couple of months before we start back to Florida.

Stay in touch,

Tom & Suzie

Road Trip 2021 "LST 325"

We are on the road again after spending 2 months at our home base in Marathon, in the Florida Keys.

Our first official destination is Oshkosh Wisconsin. We are headed there to attend the Experimental Aircraft Association annual airshow. We have never been and since we built an experimental airplane last winter, we felt we needed to go and see what everybody else is doing in the experimental field. 

We have been living full-time in our motorhome for 14 years and every year we try to travel a new route to see new things.  As we were driving north from Florida, we were trying to find interesting things to see along the way so we have been staying off the major highways and trying to take back roads to see things in remote places.

We decided that we would spend a couple of nights in Evansville Indiana, after we discovered that they have the only surviving fully operational World War II Navy LST.

The first thing you might want to know is what is an LST. 

That stands for landing ship tank and it is a very large flat bottom ship that has a large door on the bow.

Inside of the ship is a very large cargo deck that can carry 20 Sherman tanks. 

On the top deck of the ship they can put an additional 30 to 40 jeeps or trucks or smaller tracked vehicles.

Because of the flat bottom of the ship, it can drive all the way up to the beach and then lower its front ramp, allowing the tanks to drive straight into the battle.  After the tanks have left the lower deck, an elevator similar to the very large elevators on an aircraft carrier can lower each of the vehicles on the upper deck to the lower deck where they then drive down the ramp to the beach.

In addition to carrying all of those vehicles, the ship can also carry up to 400 troops and all of their equipment.

The first question we had was why is an LST in Evansville Indiana.

The answer was really surprising to us.

Since we are originally from California, it turns out that we don't know much about the geography of the United States.  Who knew that the Ohio River runs next to Evansville Indiana.  Who knew that if you built a big ship in Indiana, that you could sail it all the way to the ocean.

It turns out that when World War II started, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister in England at the time realized that if England was able to hold off the Germans long enough, the United States would enter the war to help England. When that happened, Churchhill knew that Europe would have to be invaded and that the logistics of moving all of the men and equipment from England to the shores of Europe would be a monumental task.

He then began discussing this problem with various engineers and scientists in an effort to discover the best way to accomplish the movement of all of that equipment. One of the things that they invented was the concept of the LST.

When America entered the war, we immediately started manufacturing all of the things necessary for fighting the war.

That included ships, airplanes, weapons, and ammunition.

Evansville Indiana stepped up to the task and converted their shipyard which had been producing river boats and river barges and began producing LSTs.

As they ramped up production, they eventually were producing one complete ship every three weeks. As we walked around the ship on our guided tour, it became absolutely amazing to us that you could go from a blank spot in the shipyard to a completed ship ready to launch in three weeks!

The first stop on our group guided tour of the ship was the berthing section where the troops in transit were housed. This consisted of long hallways with fold down canvas bunks.  The bunks were stacked 4 high on each side of the hallway.  They were also very closely spaced vertically and a person lying on a bunk would only have about a 6 inch space between the end of their nose and the bottom of the bunk above them. The bunks also looked very short to me and so I measured them.  The canvas portion of the bunk was about 5 feet long.  They looked like they were about 24 inches wide so a guy my size would really have to curl up to fit. 

Our guide then described what an ocean passage would be like.  He told us that because of the flat bottom construction of the ship that it did a huge amount of rolling and pitching as it dealt with the natural swells of the sea.

This resulted in a large amount of seasickness.  He told us that the people that were stuck on the bottom bunks were in a terrible place if the people on the top bunks were seasick, and that soon, everyone would be covered with vomit and the place smelled terrible, just making things worse.  He also said that it was not uncommon to have several inches of vomit sloshing up and down the hallway.

As we continued our tour, we left the berthing spaces and went to the main cargo deck.

This was the main deck where the tanks would be stored for transport. The yellow X's are marking recesses in the floor where tiedown chains would be attached to keep the tanks from sliding around in rough seas.

This is what the ramp looked like for the tanks to exit onto the beach.

Imagine sitting in your tank hearing the sounds of battle and only seeing a small portion of the beach through the open bow doors. It must have been a nightmare driving through that door and into the battle.

If you look at the overhead area you'll see a large white structure. That is the bottom of the cargo elevator that would bring the vehicles on the upper deck down to the lower deck for unloading. It took six minutes for the elevator to move from the upper deck to the lower deck, and another six minutes for it to return to the upper deck. It took a very long time to unload 40 vehicles from the top deck.

1051 LST's were manufactured during World War II.  LST 325 was manufactured in Philadelphia.  It was refurbished and returned to Evansville to represent all of the massive production done there during World War II.  LST 325 is the only surviving LST of its kind in the world that is still fully functional. Every year, it travels up and down the Ohio River providing tours at its various stops.  

LST 325 was used in the D day invasion and landed at Omaha beach after the beach had been secured. On its first trip to Omaha beach, it carried 59 vehicles and 426 combat troops. On its return trip to England to pick up more troops and equipment, it carried 38 casualties back with it. During the next nine months of the war, it made 40 trips back and forth between England and France carrying thousands of pieces of equipment and thousands of troops to help in the successful completion of the war. This is a picture taken on D day of LSTs unloading equipment on Omaha beach. The LST at the far left edge of the picture is LST 325.

As a pilot, I was absolutely amazed to find out that they operated aircraft off of some of the LSTs. They use them for scouting mission's and the method of launch and retrieval was ingenious.

They rigged a cable off of the side of the ship that ran the length of the ship. They then hung a small scout airplane from that cable. The airplane would then accelerate and as it reached flying speed release a hook that attached it to the cable. The airplane could then fly a reconnaissance mission and return to the ship. Upon his return to the ship, it would then fly toward the wire and use a hook attached to the top of the wing to snag a ring hanging from the cable on the side of the ship.  The pilot would then chop the power and the airplane would decelerate as it slid down the wire and came to a stop.  It was difficult to photograph the model in the ship but this should help you visualize what they did.

This is a photo I took from a video that was playing on the ship showing an actual hook engagement as a plane returned to the ship.

This is a picture of a plane accelerating down the cable for takeoff.

We then went up on deck where Suzie demonstrated operating one of the anti-aircraft guns.

This was the bridge conning station

Suzie standing in front of one of the 4 Higgins Boats carried on the LST.  The Higgins Boats were also flat bottomed boats that carried troops and small vehicles to the beach.

We really enjoyed our tour of LST 325.  At the end of the tour, we learned there was another World War II museum in Evansville that was dedicated to the aircraft manufacturing that took place in Evansville.  Republic Aircraft had a manufacturing facility in Evansville and produced 6,242 P-47's for the war effort.  One of those planes is now in their museum.

Although it is long gone, the Evansville Ammunition Plant produced over 96% of all of the .45 caliber ammunition used during World War II.

Our trip now continues on to Oshkosh and we will see if there is anything there to write to you about.

There is lots to see out here and we hope you can get out and explore our amazing country sometime soon.