The Salton Sea / Last Days in California

Palm Springs to the Salton Sea | January 2025

After our week spent apart, it was time for Curtis to fly back across the country and for Charlotte and I to leave the campsite we had occupied for the week. I drove us into Indio where we would hang out until Curtis’ flight arrived. Usually when I need to find a place for us to hang out, I just look for parks or green spaces on a google maps, but it was rather difficult to find one in this area because most green spaces were golf courses. Gross. Thankfully I was able to find a small park near where we had planned to meet.

I took Charlie to Dr. Carreon Park, and we walked around for a couple hours. There were some neat sculptures here, and from a distance the park looked modern and well landscaped with everything you’d want in a neighborhood park. But up close, there was sadly a lot of trash strewn about, something that’s made more obvious when you have a hound dog trying to drag you towards the discarded food scraps. Having been recently scarred from our sleepless night thanks to Charlie eating other disgusting things, I made sure to keep a wide berth between us and what she wanted to eat. When I grew tired of our constant game of keep away, we returned to the van and I drove to our meeting spot earlier than needed.

An hour later, Curtis arrived back in Palm Springs, and got a ride to meet us where we were waiting….in an In-N-Out parking lot! We grabbed lunch to go, then started driving the hour to our next camping spot, where we thought we’d spend the next couple nights. We had our eyes on the Anza-Borrego desert area for our last stop in California, and I had picked out a campsite that from all reviews online sounded like the BLM campground in Sawtooth Canyon. In fact, this was actually the back up for where I thought I would end up if camping South of Joshua Tree didn’t work out during my week alone.

We took CA-86 to the Ocotillo Wells SVRA area, then turned onto CA-78. This area is made up of sand dunes, and right away we started noticing lots of RVs, trailers, jeeps, and OHVs in the area. My confidence in this spot faded, but we were hopeful that the little campground we were heading towards was somehow not infiltrated by this type of activity. But the closer we came, the worse it got. It turns out that the campground I believed to be an easily accessible, smaller area with room to spread out was actually a big sandpit that was swarming with dudes on off road vehicles and huge motorhomes in every direction. Almost as soon as we turned onto the road, we realized we made a mistake and we definitely didn’t want to be here — but we couldn’t stop or turn around because the road was so sandy, Curtis could feel the van sinking in as he drove. He did a great job driving to get us out while I gave directions for what looked like the safest way back to the highway. Once we were back on pavement, we scoured iOverlander for other camping options. We realized that it was a holiday weekend, and so this area was definitely not the place for us. While we could have paid for a spot in Anza-Borrego State Park, it was a little more expensive than we like and we knew that Charlotte couldn’t hike on the trails in the park anyway. After this weekend, we we were planning on heading to Arizona, and after this dramatic experience we felt that it was best if we just started making our way East now. I couldn’t believe I had been so wrong about this area after all the research I had done, and was even more grateful now that I had just stayed where I did for the last week!

We returned to CA-86, and continued heading East, still not quite sure where we were going but knew there were several spots along the Salton Sea where we could boondock. While directing us to an area on the Northeast side of the sea, I noticed that the Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR was on our way and suggested we stop here so that we could finally have our late lunch. We parked, and had our burgers at a picnic table. Sunset was fast approaching, and we wanted to find a place to stay before dark, but we still decided to go for a short walk up to the viewing platform to see the large flock of birds that were hanging out on the wetlands.

Our intended camping spot was another half hour away, but when we took another look at our camping apps, we saw there was another area just down the road that we had previously written off as not a good option, and decided to check it out anyway since it was so close. This led us down a washboard road to a dispersed camping area on the beach which was much quieter than Ocotillo Wells had been, still with camping vehicles scattered around, but a much more respectful crowd than ATVers. We found a spot we were comfortable with and decided to just stay here for tonight. It wasn’t a spot we wanted to stay at for more than a night, but it provided us a quiet night where we could enjoy a lovely sunset over the Salton Sea. We took Charlotte for a walk on the beach while we enjoyed the sunset— it looked like a dream, but smelled like a nightmare. There was also a power plant just South of us that had a constant buzzing noise. But we could ignore those things for tonight. On a positive note, we saw some sandhill cranes flying above, which always makes us happy.

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast then got back on the road. Our last stop in California was at an Aldi, because after this the only Aldis between us and the Midwest were in Phoenix, and we definitely weren’t going to Phoenix. Finally, we got on I-8 and made our way East, back to Arizona!