It was amazing how they are able to farm in this area. They have diverted the local rivers for open flood irrigation to fields then the runoff goes to the lake. That is, if there is enough water for any run-off. Right now the lake is very low and getting saltier every year. Without irrigation the land is desolate and barren. Right next to that there are stands of date palms and field after field of row crops and acres of Bermuda grass and alfalfa to supply huge cattle feeder lots. It just doesn’t seem possible that they could get anything to grow.
The southern end of the lake is rimmed with geothermal power generating plants some of which have been in operation for over 30years. We didn’t get to tour but saw a pretty good video of the way they work. Their position is that it is infinitely renewable if done right. Well, for as long as the subterranean magma stays hot; so forever from a practical standpoint. It kinda smells too though. They release steam with a very “earthy” smell to it.
We meant to check out Slab City and Salvation Mountain but somehow missed them as we were driving around the lake. Slab City is a sort of RVers squatter’s city. It is the apparently the nightmare version of boondocking areas where people have just settled on abandoned land. Some live there year round. It is in a very poor rural area and folks at the Parks claim the fulltimers there just don’t have the funds to live anywhere else, or they are hiding out from the government! Anyway, we just wanted to take a peek at underground culture but missed it and didn’t think it was worth driving back to look for it.
Salvation Mountain is an adobe mountain built by a religious fanatic or at least zealot. Supposed to be great to see. It is all painted with religious icons and images. We missed it to though. It is supposed to be kind of around Slab City. We might look for it again one day but for now, we have moved on.