January 8, 2009
Long Live Love
Salvation Mountain
They are building a "bypass" bridge across the gorge above the dam, its just half done and the scale is hard to express- at the moment pieces of the span appear to hang from cables a thousand feet in the air while fearless men in hard hats dangle in little cages above the dam, the lake, the canyon....picture a high budget science fiction movie and an interplanetary industrial settlement and you'll have an idea what its like.
We stayed in a fairly deserted working class casino hotel a couple of miles from the dam, suicide safe windows, 2000$ options at the ATM and more slot machines and buffets than I could count. Yesterday we walked many miles along the old railroad trail to the dam, through 7 dynamite blasted tunnels, supported by very old redwood timbers and primitive concrete sealant-- we walked through the buzzing power station, across a series of perimeter roads, through some gates down a walkway across the top floor of a parking structure, down a series of stairs and into the heart of Man's folly.
It is astounding what we are capable of, cooperation, invention, tenacity. They built the Hoover dam in just a few years, working 24 hour shifts, and at the time it was the biggest dam in the world--now it is only the 35th biggest. When will it end?
A few days ago we went to Salvation Mountain, a monument to love in Niland, California, and another great human effort with a decidedly less imperial nature. Long live love. Down with dams and earth domination!
Comments
Long Live Leonard!
If you're still in the area and have time, go see Slab City, a fascinating community in itself, and the Salton Sea, which has a nice nature preserve despite the occasional piles of dead talapia washing ashore and spooky remnants of the failed resorts that were once huge out there. If you go to the sea, please take a moment to send Memory Thoughts to the native and black communities that were deliberately drowned out in order to make room for the resorts. What was done to them mirrors what was done to the native, Latino and black communities in downtown Palm Springs to turn that into a playground, only using water and engineers instead of fire and the city council. Strange world.
Safe travels!
salton sea
I noticed alot of effort to establish and seed wetlands along the eastern coast of the sea, and there are so many wonderful strange birds there
Slab City is a phenomonen, a thriving alternative economy, its astonishing to see military snowbords mixing it up with anarchist runaways and also what happens when "getting ahead" or "keeping up with the jones" is no longer the priority.
Post new comment