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Before heading to Slab City leaving Yuma we found a Giant Station with the best priced diesel we have found to date. This is a welcome site when you’re putting in 150 gallons.
We decided to meet up with a friend The Frugal Humanist in Slab City. Their rig broke down on the way to Quartzsite and we wanted to spend some time with them since we missed them in Quartzsite. All we knew was that they were camping with a few other people near the LOWS. Which I later learned was Loners On Wheels, they have an area of land they claim within Slab City.
We heard the stories about how bad Slab City was, how it’s a homeless camp, how unsafe it is, and how you might not make it out alive. It did remind me of a post apocalyptic world or something like a Mad Max landscape. But it wasn’t as bad as some will make it out to be.
There is definitely a problem with garbage, mental illness, and drug abuse here and some of the people could be described as rough around the edges. However, this statement isn’t an accurate description of all the people who live here. Those we encountered here were very friendly and pleasant to be around.
I decided to visit the library one afternoon.
It most certainly isn’t a luxury resort, you won’t find many luxuries here. However, you will see a lot of art. Some of it is really good.
Some just seems like trash, I don’t mean to offend anyone, I would say the same thing about certain famous art as well. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes this beholder just sees a pile of garbage.
This old cistern didn’t fit that build, it had beautiful art, both inside and out.
There are multiple different camps within Slab City.
We didn’t get to visit all of them, but did get to tour a few. We were only there for a few days and one of them rained most of the day and another was spent watching the Superbowl.
We did get to see some live music at the Oasis.
There are military testing grounds just North of the Slabs which allowed us to see many Apache helicopters and other aircraft flying low overhead. There was one night where it sounded like they were testing some large guns, that went on for about an hour or so. We found all the military testing to be quite amusing, it didn’t bother us at all.
Slab City is where we met up with and joined the Music and Mind Camp. This is a fascinating group of people who are traveling together, referring to the group as an intentional community. They are a diverse group of people who are very welcoming. They enjoy playing music, watching movies outside under the stars, intellectual conversations, and learning together. More on that later…
