Unemployed and bored, Jake, Richard and I took a road trip to the Salton Sea. It was a good trip but Bombay Beach was a little too ‘Deliverance’-y for our tastes. A little too ‘The HIlls Have Eyes’. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so uncomfortably wary of my surroundings. Or just so plain freaked out. At one point we needed directions and Richard and I refused to go into the little general store to ask, insisting that Jake should go because he’s white and less likely to be shot/lynched/whatever. This is how sketched out this place made us feel. We saw dogs walking around on roofs. We saw burned and abandoned buildings. We saw a dock to nowhere. Oh – and on our way out of town there was a big traveling carnival ride broken down by the side of the road. Creepy.
We saw some less outwardly terrifying stuff though – sunken buildings, a salt-encrusted crane, lots of fish skeletons, and on the way down we passed at least two palm tree farms. So THAT’s where all of them come from.