So I've been extremely busy with moving cross country but finally got a chance to go out towards the desert and explore a bit...
Heres a full write up I did on ExPo:
...Anyways been an extremely busy few weeks getting the ball rolling at work and trying to condense a full house worth of stuff into a 1 bedroom apartment and a 10x12 storage unit. But with a new precedence on maximizing space I've been getting rid of a bunch of stuff... like my old Jeep.
I felt like paying for the extra parking at my apartment wasn't worth it and I knew aside from rolling around once in a while with the top down. After slogging through a bunch of low ball offers I ended up getting a very reasonable offer from a nice girl who lived about an hour away from me, she drove down to see it and then we met half way after agreeing on a price. The Jeep was already paid off so I gave here the title and she went off into the sunset with my old Jeep. Glad I was able to part with it and the new owner seemed like she was really psyched to be getting something so well done up. She didn't understand everything but she said she used to go offroading with her dad in his Jeep which based on the description was probably a CJ8 since she said it was probably longer than mine, but much older so no chance it was a LJ (TJ Unlimited). The sale helped me pay off a few small bills I incurred during my cross country drip and should move the timeline for upgrades to more near future!
I ended up doing some routine maintenance on the truck such as rotating in both of my spares and doing an oil change, but the thing that I was most excited about was getting it professionally detailed, something I had only ever done once prior. It had all the road grime from the 3000+ miles plus it was only washed in the normal car wash bays and those aren't terribly great for cleaning. It ended up being pretty reasonable for a full wash and a clay bar too, I was thinking about paint correction too as I have earned a few new scratches on the trail over the past year or so but that would have made the price skyrocket.
With that being said I pretty much turned around and got the truck all dusty again. I ended up heading east this past weekend, first hitting up Julian, CA which meant I had to stop for a pie at Julian Pie Co., although I do recommend going to the Santa Ysabel location about 7 miles further north as its more low key and out of the main tourist trap that is Julian's main road. There is also a nice little shaded seating area outside that isn't a competition to get a seat. I then headed east into Anza Borrego and then Borrego Springs where we had to hit up the metal sculptures. Some were closed unfortunately and even the ones visited may have been closed as well, but we didn't go to any that were obviously off limits, so we were unable to see all of them, so theres a reason to go back there again later this year.
Next we continued east towards Salton Sea, but we made a small detour into Ocotillo Wells and saw some great views. I wanted to explore further but unfortunately my air compressor was broke after being packed up and shipped with the rest of my house hold goods and even though I ordered something to replace it, shipping is still a few weeks away; I will absolutely return when more prepared.
We arrived at Salton City and resupplied a bit, got gas and had lunch (which was tacos sold from an old ladies garage, even had to break out my 8th grade Spanish!) and headed out towards the "shoreline" and boy it was... interesting.
The map said that we should have been underwater, but it was easily a few hundred feet from us, and we could have gone closer but again we were the lone truck out there, no way to fill the tires once deflated and I could see the creme brulee like mud just on either side of the hard packed area that was safe to drive on, with plenty of tracks showing other vehicles that had strayed away and paid the price.
We then headed south towards the abandoned Navy Base and got as far as this sign before turning around.
After turning back around we headed towards Niland and eventually wound up at Slab City and of course had to hit up the instagrammer's favorite place: Salvation Mountain. Unfortunately there weren't any half naked instagram "models" however it was basically a ghost town, I think there were maybe 3 or 4 other people there.
Only amount a mile down the road was East Jesus, which I found to be much more profound that Salvation Mountain. There is this overwhelming feeling of mistrust in the media, rejection of social norms, distrust in the government coupled with extreme mental illness and drug use. I'm not trying to make any sort of alliteration towards any mainstream political thought, just weird how all of that meshes and the creative output is this creepy, sad and oddball art installation. I could have stayed there a very long time just studying different things, however it was creeping out my travel companion and she wanted to chuck deuces as quickly as possible.
The TV wall is only an incredibly small portion of it. You will be able to see it once I'm done editing all the footage I have from the trip.
We were planning on heading north and exploring Bombay Beach but it was getting extremely hot to the point that we had already powered through 2 of our 4 gallons of water and I was having issues keeping my gopros cold enough keep filming. We made an executive decision to head back and thats when we hit our hottest temps.
We took the 8 back until the 94 towards Tecate and the whole area was swarming with Border Patrol. I don't think I went more than a few minutes without seeing a truck either pulled to the side of the road or going the other direction I was traveling. I also saw part of the the border wall up on a pretty steep mountain/hill but unfortunately was unable to get a picture of as I was driving and my passenger was passed out! After getting home we saw on the news that multiple heat records had been set in a few of the places we visited and that made a whole lot more sense. Other than being extremely exhausted, stinky, sun burnt, and maybe a bit dehydrated we were fine and absolutely enjoyed ourselves. I realized a few things that I know I want to upgrade now so that I can hit it up some of the same places later this winter when I get back from my next deployment. Thanks all for reading, I'll be posting a video once I get some time to edit it all.
