MAGIC MOUNTAIN AND TRAILER PARK ART ( PART 2 )

Around the corner was the outskirts of  Slab City . Isolated trailers some with flags , all far apart from each other. Here was the last bastion of freedom no stinkin rent no stinking taxes no stinkin bylaws....and Yikes no running water or electricity.We started to
explore

                              NICE SHOE TREE
                                                           

 

                                       We noticed a cross on a marker
and pulled into a cul de sac to discover The slab city pet cemetery.
The marker reads : Here lies Shep the best dog in the world" We noticed some other grave sites which looked very big for pets. 






                                                                                   
 We  had  heard about the Range a nite spot for 
 musicians to come out and stuff.their stuff             comfy seats

No trailer park critters to be seen yet. ( 2 legged ones ) Nicole cautioned me to be aware of the camp dogs

The Oasis Club was the camp internet cafe.We decided to check it out Certainly we would run into some locals here. Down the road a woman was walking towards us. she was having a conversation with herself. I wanted to get a picture .No better not.
Inside the Oasis we finally met our first person . " Can we get a tea or coffee here ' I asked. " Yeah theres tea here' she responded. This babe was very mellow  She was a"Newbie" here .Another local came in and started talking to her. We scoped the place out. Self serve coffee and tea All included in a monthly club membership of 5 bucks or something. Two notices on the bulletin board read "counseling $1500 per hour" and "sheets of toilet paper $5 each;
Nicole asked me what that was all about. My take.. "Don't tell me your fucking problems and bring your own asswipe"  

 Another entertainment spot
Too bad we wouldn't be around when the sun goes down.

I love the idea of  a free place where you can park a trailer throw up a  shack start your own business and be Mayor of your own damn town. I said I love the IDEA
Were outa here , the swimming pools and palm trees are calling for us.

MAGIC MOUTAIN AND TRAILER PARK ART

The last day of Nicoles visit and it was time for Slab City. Cuda bailed on this outing opting for the safety of Shadow Hills RV Park and a clean bathroom. Stay at home and play with your cat little girl me and Nicole will take on this one. Our route to the infamous lair of trailer park critters  took us south along the Salton Sea scenic drive a great road to put the petal to the metal. I floored it and watched the speedometer on my f-350 quickly jump to 160km before easing off I'am sure this puppy would have done 200. We had decided to explore any places of interest on our way down and our first stop was a lovely little  community called Bombay Beach a little waterfront community of shacks and scary trailers. Where were all the people?  Not sunbathing on the Salton Sea shore ( Bad  smelly beach lots of dead tilapia fish ) We felt like we were in a ghost town  .We started to drive up and down the empty streets  WTF IS EVERYBODY?

It quickly became evident that that Bombay Beach had seen better days and that much badness had happened here.We continued our tour looking for signs of life. There were vehicles parked at different spots but no inhabitants.
Maybe  everyone was working a shift at the community meth lab.

Nicole refused to get out of the truck

                                                  No golden Arches

SATAN LIVES HERE

  It was time  to go

After going through a trashy little town of old buildings and yes
more trailers we started our final approach to to Salvation Moutain
and Slab city.......Up ahead .....there it was Hallelujah!

A painted mountain of madness greeted us as we lept out of  the truck to experience this landmark
of American folk art . It was time to cleanse our souls from the decadent life we had been pursuing in the evil valley of the Desert Cities.

 TOO MUCH HAS GONE ON

FOR TOO LONG

Some deranged denizen from slab city labored 28 years to put this 
circus together

We heard he's in a nursing home now

HOW ABOUT A NIGHT IN THE SHRINE

HOT TAMALES IN THE COLD DESERT

07/12/2013 7:38 AM  

 

A fly has landed on our warm Coachella valley. Cold air has put a damper on local and snowbirds alike. It was in the 80's when we arrived a week ago now its in the 50's .The International Tamale Festival  in Indio awaits us at 10 AM cold or no cold. It supposed to be an epic event and a very hungry Shark and Cuda are saving their appetite. Yesterday a shitty time doing payroll and sending money via Western Union. The AAA juggernaut is finally coming to a halt and getting ready to hibernate for the winter. Good I'm tired of my bliss  being trashed.A great start at 10 am before the crowds descended we started right in on some gourmet tamales . Cuda had a turkey, sweet potato and cranberry Shark went for a pork, port and wild mushroom. Yum Yum we kept walking and sampling until we got tamaled out. A stop at the wine tent to wash down our breakfast and we called it a day by 12 pm . ( shopping to do )All in all a very fun event Parades. Costumes music and delicious aromas we decided toBolt before the the human bottlenecks burned us out. About $ 30 for tamales and wine

Not bad but the price mark-up and these suckers is phenomenal with $.50 cents worth of food material transforming into a $ 2.50 to $3.50 tamales ( lots of corn meal in these babies compared to meat and vegetables ) A seasoned old couple running a nearby RV store commented" Why would I pay to walk-around and spend $ 50.00 on junk food  and not get served when we can sit down to a gourmet meal with service for the same price "( I guess this gringo has declared tamales  to be junk food  )  We liked the t-shirt stands and music and the visual feast ..We be back.

SICK PUPPY

01/12/2013 9:25 

At Valencia near LA getting ready for the final leg of our Snow Bird flight south. The Sun is Great and today promises to be a hotin. The pool and spa is fabulous here ( like the Lakes rv )

I have to confess to a sick indulgence when I'm travelling in warm climates. I love to look accuweather to see the crappy weather at home 
(the colder the better )  It seems to ratchet up your enjoyment of being on holidays to peek at the suffering you've left behind. Time for another swim damnit .

COSTCO TREATS AND AN ALL-American New Year's salute

01/01/2013 10:58 AM   

"Go to Costco and load up on the Kirkland 1.75 ml vodka" Ben our neighbor advised. You have to economize when your on the road and don't need to pay too much for your booze. After trying to avoid Costco for it's tendency to make you buy more stuff than you really want,I finally succumbed to the siren song of  ridiculously cheap alcohol and we swooped in on Costco to claim our bounty . Hot damn $13.95 for a 1.75lt bottle of 6 times distilled Kirkland signature vodka.Any borderline alcoholics who come down here will go over the alcohol cliff. just like the United States economy is going off the fiscal cliff.The new Year arrived with the sound of semi-automatic gunfire ( with an a few teaser bursts of fully automatic shots   )  interspersed with fireworks and celebratory music. It sounded like a firefight in the desert beside us. Where are the predator drones and attack helicopters? Were at home in our Montana RV New Years Day, opting out of the site party with it's dj music and ham  entree. After a great supper with the folks the previous evening we had satiated our holiday appetite for this year . Off to a tour of another rv park on a Lake and maybe some date shakes. 

TEMECULA

13/01/2013 8:54 AM  

A side trip to Temecula provided a welcome interlude from the Coachella valley. Cuda's birthday began early at Coco's with a roadtrip treat from the waitress after hearing about our birthday trip. ( FIRST RULE OF TRAVELLING: ITS ALWAYS SOMEONE'S BIRTHDAY OR AN ANNIVERSARY ) The pecan pie was delicious and would save me later from making a regretful pizza order.  Upon arriving in Temecula we checked the visitor centre and picked up some 2 for one tasting coupons. Our hotel check-in was not untill 1oclock so we decided to look-around old town and do a few winetastings. Old town Temecula was a great 10 block expanse of shops and restaurants with speakers attached to lamp poles and pumping out some great jazz background which created a great ambiance for our stroll through town. A great cigar shop with lax smoking regulations grandfathered in before California"s draconian anti-smoking laws allowed patron smoking inside the shop .  The wine tastings were ok but very expensive at $ 15 a pop. After Oregon, Walla Walla and our own Okanogan valley we were not overly impressed with the overpriced offerings of Temecula valley. The wineries themselves were opulent with nice views and great store selection, but most of the wines we tasted were very average especially at their price points of $20 to $ 40 dollars a bottle.

We did 4 wineries our first day along with tasty lunch of brie and flat iron steak arugula salad at the Pinnacle restaurant at Faulkner Winery. The complimentary birthday cheese cake did not prevent Cuda giving a scolding to the proprietorship on the customer satisfaction card, regarding food items arriving at different times, at no fault of server. Another winery and we were ready to go back to our hotel. We stopped at a small store with a sign that read liquor and fine cigars. We walked into an outrageously obscene display of  fine tequila's and other alcoholic delights.

so much tequila , so little time

 This store looked small from the outside but inside it was a liquor superstore. I walked over to the till and noticed a modest display of cigars. Is  this all you got I pouted to the energetic proprieter. "Go to the  room in the back. He responded. I noticed a small refrigerator near the till stocked with caviar. This was getting interesting. We opened the door to the cigar room .BAM  We had died and gone to heaven. This cigar room was over the top and I've been in some good ones

I want  this to be my coffin when I'am buried

As Cuda started her inspection of the big ring gauge beauties , I couldn't help going outside the room and shouting to the proprieter " I want your F...ing job. For a short while Cuda and Shark swam in a fantasy ocean of unlimited possibilities before finally forcing ourselves to settle for a red bottle of cassalado anejo tequila and the winner of  Cuda's best rolled large cigar contest. Back at the motel we annexed an area on patio near the hot tub to enjoy our bounty. Happy happy happy This was possibly the best tequila we've ever tasted and the cognac sprayed bad boy we smoked was better than ok for a non Cuban issue. 

 The next day a great public market in old Temecula where I finally found the shark tooth I've been looking for for 2 years since my last one broke. This market was great with a good balance between food and crafts. More wine tasting and finally back home through the mountains. A word about the Best Western we stayed at. Very enjoyable, great spacious room with new carpet, excellent heated pool and spa, superior continental buffet breakfast, great value for $67.00 Honestly, nothing to whine about, really. ( The bad taste in our mouth from staying in a cheap motel in

Yukima is gone )

 Cuda's birthday will continue.................

KOBE'S RESTAURANT / RANCHO MIRAGE

14/01/2013 12:34 PM  

It started with a makeshift valet service of casually dressed kids trying to meter the flow of vehicles in front of a ample spacious parking lot. If you didn't ask about available free parking they would gladly take you $10 before directing you to the complimentary parking. Greedy or classy, I don't know. If your going to offer valet parking at least put some kind of dress code for your valets. It reminded me of steet urchins trying to charge you for parking in in Mexico. The grounds and water features of this restaurant were stunning. Especially the underwater lighting and Koi fish. We entered a very busy lobby 15 minutes before our reservations and were directed to a  holding tank

lounge.,where I immediately realized the chance of getting any service was as great as the chance of the one lone waitress sprouting extra arms and legs. I muscled into the bar and  loaded the swamped  lone bartender with one more drink order   After a couple of scolding sakes and and bland cocktails we were directed to our table with another group of people to await our chef and food. Performance was ok and food was ok. This establishment was obviously riding on its laurels and had no need to raise the bar. We've tasted much better at this kind of Japanese Venue ( Suheiro's in Vancouver ) but it was a still fun dinner. I'll remember the ambiance of the grounds and the koi fish.

THE SMART GUY

There's one at every trailer park. He's the guy who has all the tools  and that extra length of sewer hose that you wish you would have brought along. He's the guy who feeds off the ignorance and misfortunes of other rv'ers offering numerous tips on maintenance and  things you can worry about going wrong with your trailer.
He's the guy who has formulated his own RV bible through lessons from his own fuck-ups, and from trying to emulate other smart guys he has come in contact with. He's the guy who knows every deal in town. He's the guy who feels compelled to drop a diarrhea dump of advice on you every time you come in contact. He's the guy you want to see screw up his sewer hose when dumping his black water causing a river of shit and toilet paper to spew over his trailer pad right in front of a large group of rv'ers having happy hour in the adjacent site. Seriously ,we all need the smart guy to help raise our dismally low trailer IQ and were just jealous bitches.
God bless the smart guy 

GOD'S WAITING ROOM

Lear jets landing taking off .Supermarkets stuffed with booze and prime cuts of meat.Long manicured boulevards with rows of palm trees. Walled gated communities with grey haired minions plying the wide roads in luxury cars and golf carts.Beautiful mountains and glorious sun drenched days. Enjoy it while you can, your time here is short. God has an appointment with you. Obituary columns bursting with large pictures of people who have lived large in this valley of bliss. Some get streets named after them