I first visited the Salton Sea when I was about 13. I drove out there with my father on a family trip to San Diego while my brother and mother toured colleges that he didn't have the grades to get into. We had rented a Ford Mustang, not one of the cool, fast ones but a model apparently reserved for Hertz Rent-A-Car where the speedometer only goes to about 85mph. We left the hotel early in the morning and headed East. Once we had left the greater San Diego Metropolis behind and were cruising on the great two-lane roads I would explore so thoroughly as an adult, my father pulled the car over. "Want to drive?" he asked.
About five minutes later I was behind the wheel for the first time, trying to figure out which pedal did what. I am truly impressed as I look back at the blind trust my father placed in me that day. The road was straight and we scarcely passed another car but that did not make up for the fact that I was 13 years old and about four feet, four inches tall. At one point he asked how fast we were going. I hadn't dared to look away from the road so I had no idea. When I chanced a glance at the dials I saw the needle pinned and shaking against the plastic under the 85. We shared a brief laugh before I was ordered to pull over, my inaugural moment in the driver's seat over.
An hour or so later, with my father back safely behind the wheel, we hit our first dirt road. This, we took for about three miles before we parked the car about 100 yards from the shore of the great Salton Sea, the gigantic saline lake held firmly in the lore of California, the baffling anomaly of biodiversity, the huge body of water that I had never heard of.
In the late Spring heat of the Mojave, I waited as my father fulfilled one of his dreams, floating in the Salton Sea. An hour later we headed back to the car, hungry and hot. I melted my shirtless skin on the vinyl seat and desperately waited for the AC to kick in. My father turned on the car, flipped the AC on and stepped on the gas. The engine whined as the tires hissed and spat mud in a wide arc behind the car. I stared at the side view mirror as mud struck it, at the mountains many miles away, the vast expanse of flatness between us and them, the solar radiation liquifying the horizon and at the small letters telling me that all of these things were actually closer than they appeared. I looked at the ground, we were not moving.
After hiking about a mile the mountains still seemed pretty far away. After another mile we walked through the front door of some poor old man's trailer. We intended to use his phone but the idea of calling for help was not option for him. He was a hardened, grizzled old man and he insisted on helping us personally. I sat in the bed of his beat up old pickup next to the wood that we would soon wedge under the tires of our rental car. We passed jackrabbits, desert shrubs and rusted shells of discarded vehicles.
It only took a few minutes to free our car from the sticky mud. Soon after, having said our thanks that were waved off with a warm smile, we were on our way.
It is now nearly twenty years later and I find myself in search of the Salton Sea of my father's dreams and of my own vague and fading memories. I the passing years I have spent months exploring the Mojave, driven to 49 states, lived in the only one you can't drive to, lived a year backpacking through Europe and Asia and have even floated in the Dead Sea. I am a married man looking at having children of my own but can't shake the draw of a place that my father showed me that helped shape my love of exploration and of America's southwestern deserts.
To be continued...
I recruited two of my favorite travel buddies for the trip, Jason and Adam. We carefully loaded my Subaru wagon to the brim and headed out. The distance from the Bay Area to the Salton Sea is roughly 500 miles. We left at about 7pm on a Wednesday after we had finished a day's work.
About five minutes later I was behind the wheel for the first time, trying to figure out which pedal did what. I am truly impressed as I look back at the blind trust my father placed in me that day. The road was straight and we scarcely passed another car but that did not make up for the fact that I was 13 years old and about four feet, four inches tall. At one point he asked how fast we were going. I hadn't dared to look away from the road so I had no idea. When I chanced a glance at the dials I saw the needle pinned and shaking against the plastic under the 85. We shared a brief laugh before I was ordered to pull over, my inaugural moment in the driver's seat over.
An hour or so later, with my father back safely behind the wheel, we hit our first dirt road. This, we took for about three miles before we parked the car about 100 yards from the shore of the great Salton Sea, the gigantic saline lake held firmly in the lore of California, the baffling anomaly of biodiversity, the huge body of water that I had never heard of.
In the late Spring heat of the Mojave, I waited as my father fulfilled one of his dreams, floating in the Salton Sea. An hour later we headed back to the car, hungry and hot. I melted my shirtless skin on the vinyl seat and desperately waited for the AC to kick in. My father turned on the car, flipped the AC on and stepped on the gas. The engine whined as the tires hissed and spat mud in a wide arc behind the car. I stared at the side view mirror as mud struck it, at the mountains many miles away, the vast expanse of flatness between us and them, the solar radiation liquifying the horizon and at the small letters telling me that all of these things were actually closer than they appeared. I looked at the ground, we were not moving.
After hiking about a mile the mountains still seemed pretty far away. After another mile we walked through the front door of some poor old man's trailer. We intended to use his phone but the idea of calling for help was not option for him. He was a hardened, grizzled old man and he insisted on helping us personally. I sat in the bed of his beat up old pickup next to the wood that we would soon wedge under the tires of our rental car. We passed jackrabbits, desert shrubs and rusted shells of discarded vehicles.
It only took a few minutes to free our car from the sticky mud. Soon after, having said our thanks that were waved off with a warm smile, we were on our way.
It is now nearly twenty years later and I find myself in search of the Salton Sea of my father's dreams and of my own vague and fading memories. I the passing years I have spent months exploring the Mojave, driven to 49 states, lived in the only one you can't drive to, lived a year backpacking through Europe and Asia and have even floated in the Dead Sea. I am a married man looking at having children of my own but can't shake the draw of a place that my father showed me that helped shape my love of exploration and of America's southwestern deserts.
To be continued...
See 'The Salton Sea: Part 1' in photos.
Route taken on a 2006 road trip.
I recruited two of my favorite travel buddies for the trip, Jason and Adam. We carefully loaded my Subaru wagon to the brim and headed out. The distance from the Bay Area to the Salton Sea is roughly 500 miles. We left at about 7pm on a Wednesday after we had finished a day's work.
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