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April 2024

The Stork and the Beanstalk

A Mother's Journal

A photo journal comprised of my thoughts on motherhood and other life happenings, as well
as some of professional work as a photographer. Southern California is home.

Tag: J & A roadtrip

Joshua Tree

by Ashley filed under Bits + Pieces, Travel

Janet and I have been to Joshua Tree loads of times. There was that one time we went on a whim, just before we were set to board a plane for Thailand, because our feet were so itchy we just couldn’t wait for an adventure. We stopped again, I believe, on the way back from Louisiana. I’m totally being dramatic now, aren’t I? There were obviously a few other stops along the

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way. Then there was the time we went, just the two of us, and called it my bachelorette party just before I got married.

We spent the evening there, enjoying the cooler weather (It was 98 degrees there, as opposed to the 120 in Palm Springs) and listening to music in the back of the pick-up truck. We climbed some rocks,

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played around with my new handy dandy camera remote, and shot the shit until the sun went down and the dark sky invited us to make our way back to Palm Springs.

On the way out, I spotted a lovely couple on top of a rock. I pulled over, hopped out, yelled for them to stand up, and snapped that last picture because I’m so daring like that now (I’m being facetious. There are a thousand pictures I regret not taking. I kick myself often for that. Trying to grow hair on my nuts is always on my to do list).

Salvation Mountain

by Ashley filed under Bits + Pieces, Travel

Salvation Mountain is in an area referred to as “Slab City”, in Niland, not far from the Salton Sea. Slab City used to be the training grounds for the Marines back in 1942, but when operations ceased a few years later, the buildings were removed and sold. Since then, it remains abandoned with only cement foundations, hence the name “Slab City”. Today, RV campers occupy the area mostly in the winter months. Be what it may, when you ride up to it, it feels completely random and odd; Like walking through a weird dream.

We only encountered one other couple on our visit to Salvation Mountain. I guess there are some perks of going in the dreaded summer heat because I’ve read you can battle up to 100 people in the winter and well, it just wouldn’t have been the same.

Salvation Mountain was built by Leonard Knight who is currently 82 years old and resides in a nursing home in San Diego. He has volunteers that rotate watch on his mountain and are available to ask questions to if going up to a seemingly abandoned trailer in the middle of nowhere is your thing. And, you better believe, it’s my thing.

You can read about Leonard Knight by clicking here and more about the history of the mountain by clicking here.

The Salton Sea

by Ashley filed under Bits + Pieces, Travel

Oh the Salton Sea. There isn’t a place like it, that’s for sure. And any picture of the place only tells you a small sliver of the story, let me tell you. It’s kinda like looking at a picture of a men’s urinal from a dirty truck stop, you just can’t smell the urine and filth. Same same, but different.

In a photo, it looks like one of the most stunning places. Am I right, or am I right? Please allow me to ruin it for you now.

Use your senses: The temperature is 120F / 47C. It feels like you opened the oven door after you had it closed and heating for a couple of hours. The heat consumes you. It’s difficult to breath. Sweat trickles down your back and your dress becomes stuck to the back of your leg with each step you take. Your hair is crunchy, proof you’ve gone between the sweltering heat and the air conditioned car. Oh ya, and the air is completely stagnate. In 2012 the Salton Sea was confirmed as the source of the rotten egg smell in the LA Basin. The LA Basin is 150 miles away from the Salton Sea. Can you imagine how bad a fart would have to smell to travel even a mile? I’m trying to put this stench in perspective, people. I could tell you it smells like sulfur, but it’s worse than that. It’s more like sulfur with rotten egg with rotting corpse. As soon as you step out of your car, you hear the buzzing of a thousand flies. They land on your face and they invade your car. There is no amount of shooing that will stop them. As you walk closer to the water’s edge, you hear crunching only to look down and discover that what appears to be sand is really just mutilated fish bone and with each step you are making more, um, “sand”.

But oh it’s a site to behold, isn’t it?

We stopped in at a local bar in Bombay Beach to beat the heat, enjoyed some cold beer, and watched as the locals swatted flies with their oversized fly swatters.

I mentioned the Bombay Beach documentary a while back. Here’s the trailer for it. Gotta love any documentary with music by Beirut and Bob Dylan. It was… interesting.

Want to read more about why the Salton Sea is the way it is? This article is one of the best I’ve read.