After leaving Slab City, we drove around to the western side of the Salton Sea, but we backtracked by going south and then around so that we could see Salton City.

Here is Spreckels Sugar in Brawley, CA.  I actually took this picture on our way to Slab City.  What’s interesting is that the sea level is marked on the side of the structure.  That’s how low it is here.

The Salton Sea is an environmental disaster, not unlike the Aral Sea.  Instead of learning from the mistakes made by diverting water from rivers that flowed to the Aral, history is repeating itself here.  Water from the Colorado river is diverted for farming, but also for San Diego and the Coachella Valley.  This is expected to increase over the next year, causing the Sea to shrink even further.  It is having disastrous effects, both on the wildlife and humans.

Back in the 1960s, Salton City was developed and was intended to be a beach community.  All the infrastructure was put in place, but with a dying sea, the town died too.  It looks like a ghost town.  What a sad state!  However, the population has started to rise in the last few years due to rising housing costs in California.  You can buy a serviced lot in Salton City for less than $5000!  Of course, it comes with health risks because the Sea is in such poor shape.

We stopped and made lunch at what was supposed to be a parking lot for the beach.  Poppy was ecstatic to roll around on the polluted shore.  We let her.  Life is short!

This is the avenue leading to the beach parking lot.  There are 2 lanes leading there and 2 leading away on the other side of the median.  The city planners had expected lots of traffic.  Now, it looks post-apocalyptic with all the dead palm trees and crumbling pavement.

This is the beach parking lot, where we made our lunch.  We were wondering if Mad Max would show up.  Eerie.

Of course, a beach is a beach, and dogs must have fun.

We tried to brush off the dusty sand from Poppy’s fur before she got into the Chinook, but it was deep in her fur.  Whenever she shook, there was a cloud of polluted dusty sand in the air.  Mmm!  Then, we all got to inhale it.

Next, something wonderful happened.

We arrived at Oasis Palms RV Resort and discovered something we hadn’t seen in months . . .

. . . G R A S S ! !

Imagine the dogs’ joy!

Imagine our joy!  We could finally give Poppy a bath!  Before she could sprinkle more of that Salton Sea dust around, we lathered her up.  We are near a town called Thermal, so the water from the pipe came out warm, so I didn’t even need to warm her bath water.

Here she is, all fresh and clean!

It didn’t take long for her fur to dry in the late afternoon sun.  Of course, Poppy had to lick herself a bit to “improve” her scent.  She wouldn’t want the other dogs to think she was one of those kinds of dogs!

Oasis Palms RV Resort is one of the nicest parks we have ever stayed at.  The facilities are well-maintained, clean, and orderly, and we can pick fruit from any of the trees in the park.  The best part is that the managers are dog-lovers and dogs basically run freely within reason.  They can go in the buildings and in the pool and hot tub area.  There is a fire pit with a mountain of firewood.  The managers start the fire every afternoon for happy hour, and the dogs are welcome to come to happy hour.  Poppy is in her glory!  Daisy also enjoys watching all the dogs play.  There is a separate “dog run”, but it’s mostly for the dogs who are high energy and don’t play well in the public areas.

When we were in Yuma, the RV park we stayed at was pretty run-down.  It wasn’t anywhere close to being in the same league as this one, yet there were still people there watching every move the dogs made.  Some insisted that dogs be taken outside the park to pee (like a dog can hold it on the walk to get beyond the entrance!  HA!).  This park is glorious, and dogs bounce and play together everywhere in the park.  There was a concert tonight in the clubhouse, and 2 dogs where wrestling on a sofa near the stage.

The RV park is fairly well situated to the Palm Springs area.  Today, we went to Palm Desert, Indio, and La Quinta with Ted and Dona.  This evening, we went somewhere special for dinner.

There is a Mexican family that lives fairly close to the park.  On Saturday nights, they set up a shelter and tables in front of their house and cook up Mexican food for the locals.  Someone got wind of this in the park, and the secret gets passed on to new park residents, and we got in on it!  Dona got 2 quesadillas, Ted & Paul got 2 tostadas and a beer each, and I got 2 tostadas and a pop.  The food was divine!  Our bill came to $25.25 for the 4 of us!