Desert Nomads

Jan 18/06 Wednesday
It was an easy drive from Indio to Blythe, California – about an hour and a half. Blythe sits in the middle of the desert on the Colorado River at the Arizona border. The last time I was there was midsummer and the heat was so oppressive we had to stay inside with the air-conditioning. But it’s January and the temperature’s perfect. We stayed at an RV resort on the river, performed al the mundane RV tasks – filled with water; dumped the holding tanks; did laundry. The space ratio assigned to each unit was so small that if we sneezed, someone would say ‘Geshundheit!’ The view however was superb – we were right on the riverbank and there were a multitude of birds, so we sat with our martinis watching the passing parade as the sun went down.

Jan 19 to 23/06 Thursday to Monday Quartzsite

Quartzsite, Arizona is only about 30 miles from Blythe across the Colorado River and through the mountains (hills really) so we were there in no time. Our friends (P&C) gave us careful directions and met us at the Mormon church on the east side of town and guided us to the BLM lands where we boondocked (for the uninitiated – free, dry [no services] camping). There are only two freeway exits to Quartzsite - #17 and #19.and had we got off at #17 by mistake, we would have been caught up in gridlock traffic – unbelievable I know, that this tiny town would be so overrun. It’s an amazing sight – more RV’s than I’d ever thought could be in one small place all at the same time….. and the money the aging owners spent on their moving homes for the ultimate in luxury! Obviously ‘spending the kids inheritance’.

Only five minutes out of town, we pulled into one of several gravel roads into our desert abode for the next five days. RV’s clustered together in circles reminiscent of wagon trains from days gone by. Our road was marked with a metal cactus made out of tin cans and painted a reddish brown, one cactus arm pointing the way to someone’s home. As the road wove in further, a second, third and fourth cactus pointed the way to our own ‘circle of friends’ (actually P&C’s friends). Large cacti, small trees up to about 12 foot high and low shrubs grew here and there, as far as the eye could see across the desert. They delineated the areas where the Rvers could congregate into their clumps, providing some privacy from the next sites. Our motorhome (AKA Maggie II) had so much space around it, we felt alone while together with our group. In the centre of our circle, P&C had built a fire pit with rocks gathered from the surrounding area.

Towing our Honda CRV is the best! We unhooked and were free to explore. “Free WIFI” – a large iridescent yellow sign across the side of an old remodelled bus, made my already high spirits soar. I drove and picked up my laptop, returned and I was immediately connected. “What’s the catch?” I wondered. Well, nothing really. A 45ish woman and her husband sometimes sat out front displaying her “RV Gypsy Journal” and hoped to sell subscriptions, but they never approached us. This is where I published the first episode of my blog.

A sea of grey and blue heads bobbed along the roads and lanes that were lined with tents and other temporary shelters housing retail kiosks. Oh my gawd! I felt young in this mass of wrinkled flesh, some in scooters, others with canes, sun visors on the women and ballcaps on the men. They pushed strollers holding their babies – dogs, as many as three per buggy. And they were shopping………for t-shirts, jewellery, Navajo pots, and everything else you could think of. I overheard many times, spouses snarling at each other loudly (hard of hearing, I guess). I thought that people were supposed to get sweeter temperaments with age – but that’s not so, apparently. It was strange, the absence of children and younger people but that changed a bit on the weekend when families came in for the day.

Quartzsite is a flashback to the Gold Rush days and the instant towns that sprung up. Restaurants, such as “Billy Bob’s” and “Sweet Darlene’s”, reside in trailers, tents and corrugated metal shelters, with picnic tables outside. They offer finger-lickin’ ribs, hamburgers and good down-home cooking. Vendors with high-crowned and battered cowboy hats and long straggly beards – ZZ Top look-alikes - refugees from the Ozarks, I thought - sold everything from wooden armadillos to carved zebras – crystals, exotic animal leather goods (I certainly don’t approve of that), old car parts, tie-dye clothing, candles, ancient knives and ammunition.

Rocks of all kinds, things made out of rocks, jewellery and jewellery making supplies were prevalent in the markets but just a half mile down the road, a group of tents were devoted to lapidary, gems, etc. I was in heaven, delving into pans of rock slabs and searching for the cheap but unusual pieces that I could create my ‘masterpieces’ from J.

The Big RV Show runs for ten days in January and the old folk crammed the tent on opening day – hardly any breathing room, so we escaped and waited a couple of days and it was much better. We spent some money on ‘squeegees and sponges’ – typical country fair stuff – a portable generator, a new straw outdoor mat, and other bits and pieces that we couldn’t resist. We are so obsessed with Maggie II and the freedom she offers us that we don’t want any material possessions that aren’t RV related.

Our early morning walks deep into the desert, we had to put our warm coats on and sometimes gloves. Overnight, it would almost dip to freezing but then would warm to around 20 degrees Celsius (70 deg F) by noon. The desert around Quartzsite is very rocky, hence the name. So, you could drive far in without getting stuck and we would suddenly stumble upon a scruffy tent or decrepit camper tucked in behind the bushes – these people were a different type, probably living fulltime there and scrounging for food. They shared their abodes with multi-breed dogs appearing almost wild so we would try to take a wide berth around them. After a couple of times of foolishly getting lost among the mass of RV’s, we dug out our portable GPS…..it was particularly difficult after dark driving back in and if it wasn’t for the GPS, we’d have never found home.

On the main street, stands a rickety wooden shack that is the town bookstore. Outside, laid neat piles of ‘free’ books and magazines – mostly thirty or forty years old but still, they’re ‘free’. There is a sign out front warning what lies ahead. The proprietor (all ninety pounds of him) only wears a tiny thong – and nothing else. His scrawny brown body has been leathered by the sun and appears almost snake-like. Scraggly long hair and beard and John Lennon glasses at the end of his nose show him to be a sixties dropout but his gentle manner made it a comfortable encounter without embarrassment. An aroma of incense and other pungent scents permeated the air; nooks and crannies filled with well-used books on every imaginable subject, an outdoor retreat with a huge tree lodging thousands of cheeping birds, an alternate-lifestyle clientele of mixed races, some in ethnic dress made it a very satisfying visit.

Jan 24-25/06 Tuesday/Wednesday - El Centro, California
It’s a lovely drive from Blythe, CA to El Centro, firstly agricultural, then hilly desert and bird sanctuary along the Colorado river, then miles of undulating sand dunes – ATV’s climbing them like ants. Fields of cotton and huge white bales of recently harvested crop were ringed by graceful date palms on the final approach to El Centro.

There’s a giant market every Wednesday in Calexico, CA, just south of El Centro and near the Mexican border town of Mexicali. The vendors were all Mexican as were most of the clientele – a few aging white tourists intermingled of course. The license plates of the parked cars were mostly ‘BC’ Baja California, so they must come across the border just to sell at the market. In the centre of the throng, are mostly new items – clothing, shoes, hardware…around the periphery are mounds of used clothing, household goods and toys and the women dug through them in a frenzy. Amazingly cheap prices for the new stuff, so I can imagine how little they ask for the used.
Socks – 15 pair for $3 – new
Jeans - $5 to $10 each – new
Shirts - $3 each – new
Fernie bought a little musical box/rocking horse toy for 50 cents – it just appealed to his sense of whimsy. It now graces our dash when we are parked.

A couple of early morning hours at the market were enough, so we just looked around Calexico and went back to Maggie II, ensconced in the Walmart and picked up Caesar for a journey north to Nyland – about thirty miles up. East of Nyland a few miles lies Slab City, a former military base, now home to hundreds of Rving nomads – many permanent residents in shabby trailers, and families with toys scattered around and some snowbirds.

At the entrance to the Slabs, is an amazing sight – a colourful monument “Salvation Mountain”, the work of one man over a period of twenty-three years – what a marvel! We pulled in at the roadside and from down below we heard a querulous call “Come on down”…..”Come on down”. It sounded like an old woman. A tiny figure was beckoning madly to us “Come on down”. So down we ventured to the panel trucks painted on every surface with religious dogma, to the sofa in the open air, to the bed under a canopy of woven rags, to the mongrel dog who appeared to be smiling; and to the delightful little artist “Leonard Knight” who invited us for a tour of his incredible structure.

According to Leonard, he crash landed in a balloon 23 years ago at that spot and unhurt, then promised his life to God and started to build Salvation Mountain. It is made of adobe – bales of straw and clay softened with water. “The mountain gave me the material I needed” he said “----clay - so I just knew what I had to do”. At 73, Leonard is wizened and stoop-shouldered but so exuberant. He led us inside the many rooms decorated with recycled materials such as old car parts. Tree trunks and branches that he scavenged from the surrounding desert were fashioned into intricate braces glued together with adobe.
“They’re all dead when I take them” he stated
“I don’t cut down live trees”
Every surface was painted in lime green, flamingo pink, lemon yellow, scarlet, bright blue…. He demonstrated how he made the flowers on the trees…..”You just throw a handful of wet clay onto the tree and then you punch it – and you have a flower” he proudly maintained. I was beginning to feel the spirituality of this special person.

He encouraged us to walk up the ‘yellow brick road’ weaving up the ‘mountain’ between the bright blue oceans. ‘The Holy Bible’, ‘GOD’, a cross at the top and other religious rhetoric grace the beautiful shrine. The varied and vivid colours sparkled in the bright afternoon sunshine and dazzled us as we climbed to the top.

He invited us into his outdoor living area after giving the tour and showed us the well-worn calendar that had his monument in – a Barnes and Noble ‘Weird and Wacky America’ calendar. He showed us the book he published with his story and photos; he showed us his albums of magazine and newspaper clippings and he never once mentioned money. He thanked us profusely for coming and asked if we would excuse him as he had to go into town but ‘please be comfortable and stay as long as you like’ he said. He warmed my heart (which some say is awfully hard to do) - I fell in love with this delightful little character.

We gave him a small donation and he in turn gave us a jigsaw and a dozen postcards of Salvation Mountain. Maybe Leonard is a Saint………the closest I’ve ever met anyway.

An old battered bike sprawled against his lean-to; on the back was a little motor. He pulled the cord several times and said “it always starts eventually” but that time it didn’t. He put his old arthritic leg over the seat and rode off slowly, down the gully and up to the road. He looked a pathetic, Charlie Chaplin-like silhouette as he peddled off down the road.

Slab City lies on a bit of a ridge in the shadow of the Chocolate Mountains. The roads wind in and I realized that it is a real community, with a medical centre (in a trailer of course), and a fantastic outdoor theatre. Old car seats lined up in rows for the audience; shiny silver bumpers topped car doors to create barricades; the stage was raised about three feet and was backed by trailers used for dressing rooms I suppose. A large poster of Bob Marley sat in the centre and a sign inviting all musicians to come and ‘jam’.
On the road, another sign begged for participants for their upcoming talent show on Jan 28th. If you can sing or dance’ it said ‘please sign up’. I so wished that we were available on that day. I would love to spend a few days immersed in the culture of the Slabs community. However, our friends (P&C) were showing us ‘newbies’ the ropes and we really wanted to go with them to their spot outside Yuma in the desert near Pilot Knob.