Inside Slab City, The Lawless city in the Desert | Last Free Place In America

what brought you out here City Life just in for me having an opportunity to do the things that I really want to do and not having anybody tell me I can't St passed laws saying you couldn't Feed the Homeless every single person I've talked to has been one of the friendliest welcoming people that I've ever met in my entire life it's been quite the experience walking around here meeting everyone and and just seeing the the culture and the art that's out here well it's the last resort for a lot of people this place is incredible just so unbelievably interesting but all this stuff is just built by people who are living out here most of which for free so I realized last night um after I pulled one of these out that I didn't get small trash bags I got super large ones which is kind of annoying cuz I only have a small trash can but whatever taking out the trash right now and if you guys can't tell by the noise we are in an OHV area which means off Highway Vehicle area totally free campsite with some great views of the mountains but there's actually a couple little kids on the on their dirt bikes and four-wheelers right now and all these RVs in a circle are probably all toy haulers and have side by sides and 4x4s in them and then they take them out there on this public land rip around on them these usually aren't the most ideal campsites cuz they are kind of loud but most of these people can get here till this morning so it's not too bad and places like this are completely free they can stay here for up to 30 days completely free and they've got flushable toilets and the best part which is where we're going right now nice hot showers I actually only have 3 qus I thought I had more which means I only get 3 minutes to shower which I think should be enough but I guess we'll find out all right so we cooked through that shower I had some time left over on my 3 minutes and the water also got surprisingly hot it was actually a pretty nice shower this Desert Air is wreaking havoc on my [Music] skin definitely starting this winter road trip a little bit warmer down here in the desert it's like 65° beautiful day outside winter is just about the only time that the uh desert is enjoyable when it's not 120° especially where we're going today which is the Sut and sea which is 250 ft below sea level and temperatures over there get to around 120° in the summer but right now it's a nice mild 65 also there really isn't much in terms of civilization out here so put my starlink up last night get a little bit better service so we're going to this place near the saltan city today called Slab City which is widely known as a lawless town and one of the last free places in America and it's basically a town that's become a sanctuary for people who want to escape society and get away from it you don't have to pay rent there it's on BLM land and you can basically just build your own house out of essentially whatever you'll find which you see a bunch of when we get down there but it's just a place I've always been interested in and ever since I last came down here and went to Bombay Beach which is another abandoned Beach town on the sultan sea I wanted to make my way over to Slab City so excited to finally get there but before we head over there got to make some [Music] breakfast I also want to use starlink a bit more than I recently have so instead of putting it fully away and taking it apart I've just been taking it off the roof and kind of just throwing it in there on the seat make set up a little bit easier when uh when I go to need it again all right let's get out of here we got about an hour drive until we get to where we need to go today so let's get to [Music] it [Music] all right so we've made it here but this is kind of the first marker I guess when you get into the city kind of like the uh Las Vegas sign welcome to Fabulous Slab City California and there really isn't much out here I mean in terms of things you can see or do there was a small town we drove through about a mile and a half two miles back that way but other than that it's been a lot of industrial and uh kind of open abandoned land anyways [Music] onward so I figured for our first stop here in Slab City we'd stop by the most recognizable and famous spot in this area Salvation Mountain which I don't really know how to describe it but it's this clay Painted Mountain with the message God is love and a giant cross on the top of it it is pretty spectacular a lot of it's uh closed off though here because I guess there was rain over the past few days and it's kind of falling apart I don't know if you can see it over there are you the uh the caretaker for for the mountain what's the story behind it uh Leonard started this project in 1984 Leonard is the Builder he's the Builder he did everything you see here all the vehicles the mountain the flower bed the museum okay he built everything here and it's all closed off right now cuz of the rain it's closed off because of the Ring are you still building it up or just kind of maintaining just maintaining it maintaining it's one man's uh passion one man's work it'd be the same as trying to add on to the Mona Lisa you can't do it is that stuff I hear off in the distance is that the the milit milary yeah R the bombs going on they still they still do bombing up there in the chocolate mountains they still fire weapons all kinds of stuff yeah I read about that online that you can hear the uh hear the bombing range from here yeah we got lightning uh not light lightning but light shows sometimes at night where you see paty helicopters firing down at the crew oh that's pretty cool we have Tracer rounds how long have you uh how long have you lived here six years six years volunteering for the mountain for around 4 and a half that's awesome what made you come out here if you don't mind me asking my wife my wife and the laws kept changing in Florida we had a small restaurant at a la tree service business the state passed laws saying you couldn't Feed the Homeless oh really and I used to feed the Homeless every Sunday out of my restaurant and one day I was delivering food to a security guard that worked in one of the banks and when I come back I got 26 tickets handed to me so you think that's kind of what brings most people out here is just the the freedom of it I think the freedom brings people out here the lack of bills that you have to pay you if you brought an RV out here and you parked right there across the street and you made a little encampment for yourself for the winter time it doesn't cost you anything I mean the only thing you have to pay for is here is your own power and your own water mhm and you never get bugged by no law enforcement or anything law enforcement don't bug you they'll come by I get a law enforcement that bring donations to my Camp my Camp is very big camp and it's well known and uh therefore they end up bringing people donations and those donations I pass out the people who need it in the slab that's awesome how big is this place cuz I know on the map it's like you got the the main Slab City up there 8,000 acres and what is it is it is it BLM land BLM and teachers Association and the mza family well I appreciate you thank you again so sounds like they have a couple rotating caretakers that come out here and not necessarily maintain the mountain but just keep people off so it doesn't get any more destroyed than uh than I guess it currently is and it's interesting if you look online this was made by one man lard Knight over a 20-year period one handful of mud at a time and essentially what he did was he used hay bales mixed with mud plastered them on and then painted over them with like 17 layers of paint and then ended up with this and I guess he used to be able to go up in there but rain has made it a little bit too dangerous I also sat there and I was talking to him for a while and I didn't get a lot of it on camera but he told me that this is actually where Leonard Knight lived for 25 to 30 years in the back of this truck while he built out that mountain so he was kind of a OG vanifer pretty crazy to think that someone lived in this for 30 years in a 120° heat in the summer and sometimes below 30 in the winter with holes in the walls and and no one olation I don't know how well you can see that but there's a bed back there a couple benches a lot of paint but yeah I think it's time to get out of here and go somewhere else my my goal today is to meet a bunch of people and kind of see what life is like living here in Slap City and he told me one place I got to check out is East Jesus so we'll head over there at some point before we leave today see the art so I think the best way that I'm going to be able to meet as many people around here is to kind of walk around on foot and just see who I run into obviously within reason he said some of the people around here are extremely friendly and some of them obviously came out here for a reason for the Privacy so we'll kind of be wary of that but I think before I get out and walk around anywhere on foot I'm going to drive myself around and get a lay of the land all right so I just put over on the side of the road again because there was another welcome sign I was getting some shots of that but also this house right here is so amazing it's like a rusty metal Igloo this is your project this is amazing it's like a it's like a metal Igloo how long thought about like that yeah it is what's your name DNA DNA nice to meet you I'm Ryan so how long you been working on this oh I started it actually a year ago and then I took a break from it we just picked it up the past month or so you build these sculptures too yeah that's what I really like to do those are awesome yeah I really like that small one and it's all out of Slab City uh trash basically so you find you find all this you find all this metal just out here yeah from burnouts and stuff like that all the insulation in this thing is used out of the the mattresses and the uh wow cushions and stuff like that packed all that in for insulation still closing it up in here this is incredible have a chimney in the center there h fire pit here yeah this is going to be incredible the trees aren't really structural that they're they're just anchored in later uh-huh but the structure itself holds itself it's all built out of pallets okay pallets and I added a few long boards over the center fa here and then do you you plan on this is going to be where you're living no this is actually going to be like a little store restaurant slash okay PL cool room for the summer yeah definitely since it's insulated we're going to put an air conditioner in here and and close this all off as well you got a you got a name for the restaurant yet I think Pete's calling it The Last Resort I'm building this the last resort that's a good name I like that name well it's the last resort for a lot of people yeah that's fair what if you don't mind me asking what brought you out here n city life just in for me City that's what I've been hearing I I was speaking to another guy down at the uh Salvation Mountain he said the same thing just too many regulations you know the individual like the person like you and me we get along fine probably soon as you get an organization going on it seems like it gets out of control really quick and it gets to be a problem yep I agree I'm the same way where they're suppressing somebody else to to step on well I appreciate you taking me in here let me uh let me get a view of the place this is incredible I can't wait to see how it looks when it when you're finished with it yeah it's it's going to probably have murals painted in the inside are you are you an artist like a painter as well I do do that do use that Medium mainly lately I've been with like metal and metal sculptures lot like what I've been doing L yeah those ones out there are amazing I like that one a lot that one's so cool and I sold a couple of them my mom even bought a couple doesn't really count but you got any smaller ones a DOT I got a couple things dots is is dots another another person that lives around here another camp this is this guy got crushed but he was uh these are some really really cool pieces well this is awesome appreciate it where is uh where is Dots Dots is right there before East Jesus she's uh the camp you'll see dot House of dots another person to check out and talk to yeah and she's got one of my big dragon flies over there I'll have to ask her about it there's a few other pieces throughout the slabs here it was nice meeting you DNA appreciate you taking me in your house let me see everything you got it man yeah well I'll see you around have a good one can't believe it it took him so little time to build that it's incredible looking feel like I'm kind of getting the road map too Slab City by stopping around and talking to people I got uh East Jesus from first guy I talked to and then DNA told me about this lady called dots who has some of his pieces who might go try to uh meet and find out as well but got a little Sidetrack let's go drive around a little bit and see the rest of the place lab City the last free place truly this is like the last free place on Earth if you think about it because you don't have to pay rent you don't have to answer to anybody you can claim your own land there's no kind of paperwork you got to go through don't know how the legality of it all works not really sure but it seems to work out for itself so it's pretty interesting seeing all the different types of camps are around here some of them are RVs some of them are some places that they just built off of scraps they found around in the desert really interesting they even got their own uh Town basketball court it's so interesting to see stuff like this like this is honestly what I would imagine if the world ever collapsed and we reverted back to the Stone Age this is kind of what you would see after a certain number of years but looks like that's a restaurant right there doesn't seem to be open oh they got got a little concert hall right here yeah it looks like this is like some sort of uh concert venue Open Mic every Saturday I wish it was a Saturday come out here at night check out the place but looks awesome got a whole stage up there it's called the range bunch of buses seats probably gets pretty Lively there on Saturday nights all right come to a Crossroads we've got East Jesus to the left library and a hostel and an interact Cafe to the right and I guess this is kind of what he was saying about you can find anywhere plop your RV or build a house and do whatever and then you just got to lay claim to it someone takes it they take it I guess it's kind of you just figure that out for yourself or something I don't really know but this place look cool so I'm going to stop here real quick before we head down to the uh internet cafe and all that it's like a uh Tower someone built almost like a pyramid and I tried to come in here without any preconceptions about what I was going to see the the people I was going to meet or what everything was going to be about so I'm just keeping an open mind talking to everybody trying to get a perspective from the people that actually live here and kind of draw my own conclusions cuz no matter what you might read or see online a lot of the times there's more of the story Church of Enlightenment be cool to go up in that Tower but I don't see anybody out here it might be inside or something also the cool thing about this area is each house has its own identity it's not like the cookie cutter houses of the suburbs you kind of of every single house as an individual cuz it's built by the person who lives in it yeah it looks like sometimes this is an open attraction to the to the public but seems to be closed off right now yeah it says under construction up there but I just looked it up online it was built by Dr Spencer William Brown acupuncturist herbalist sex therapist don't know if he is uh still around or if he's in there if he's out but it's pretty crazy structure have built out here in the desert with I'm guessing no major Machinery yeah little gift shop pretty cool all right hopefully we don't get sidetracked again I think now I'm just going to follow these signs head over the library and check out the uh internet cafe cuz I'm very interested to see what that is like also it sounds like based on the language that these people are using that this is I've never been but kind of like burning man where all of these people are in their own camps but are part of a larger camp and each Camp kind of has its own stuff going on and stuff that they're doing but pulling up to the free camping Cafe see if it's open it's also kind of weird pulling up to these places cuz says they in that Cafe and camping but there's nobody here so you don't know if it's like someone's private camp or if they don't want to be bothered or not so little bit cautious doing this someone's cooking something how's it going going how you doing good is this the uh internet cafe yes it is awesome is this your bike shop over here yes it is what did you say your name Sorry Charlie pull the bike guy Charlie pull the bike guy yes Ryan very nice I'm just uh walking around trying to meet as many people as I can coffee in the morning man at the Oasis great place to meet people coffee at the uh Oasis in the morning what time uh they start at 7:00 so yeah this is the uh internet cafe got a bunch of seats tables come here and get some work done pretty cool also they got cats how long have you uh been living out here you don't mind me asking six years six years and this is what you do full-time out here is just fixed bikes every day is that how most people get around out here is bikes oh yeah I mean I take my job very serious to mean some people got to get water I mean you got to do every day if you plan on coming and just laying around I don't think that's going to work out you goer just like any typical neighborhood up here we have a police force and it's us yeah I heard about that online that they they you guys burn down the houses if uh you find out they've been well we're trying toop stop that there's no sense in burning up the resources can run them out of here man to keep their get them out yeah you take care of your own out here here everybody knows everybody some form or another the bad people to steal and people and we got that problem too cuz we got a problem with blue pills what is that is that meth no blue pills it's like a downer Downer I mean there's I'm on meth okay I mean for the most part all of us are on some type of rug yeah brother this more good than there is bad here yeah that's what I've been hearing if this is your first time here up front around 4:00 uh Wrangler Roose Wrangler Ro is that the restaurant place yes okay how do you maintain in the heat I mean whatever you heard just add a little bit more to it cuz I mean it's that bad I won't pull no punches with no it's bad yeah it's it's hot 125° is if I got gas I run my generator but I try not to run it too much cuz if you run it man you're just going to blow it up yeah I got an AC but I I I'm more Abid of hot weather than I am cold weather yeah same I'm kind of the same way so everyone knows everyone around here at least the people who live here full-time at least uh even if you never met them I mean there's people here man I know that I've never met uhhuh you know I've heard their name and stuff like that but you know most people man come here and I mooved right over there in that spot matter of fact they burned down my motor home oh really girls got in the fight girl got mad at another girl next thing you know they burning my down is that a big problem here arson people burning down stuff you got to be on your toes man around here but don't don't get me wrong there's certain people they know to they can't with there's certain people they they they know not to with people come up here and live they don't want no trouble yeah but uh I don't know how long you're going to be here you're more than L it's free parking here in the parking lot you can sleep here whatever you want awesome appreciate the other camps man they charge okay appreciate that if you need a place to stay you can stay right here awesome thank you very much appreciate that it was very nice meeting you hey very nice meeting you too sir have a good rest of your day go to the library library down this way okay thank you so this is where Bill recommended we go next fol Library he said it's open today so head in there and check out see what they got wow lot of books in here different sections this place is incredible it's like eerily cool just so unbelievably interesting that all this stuff is just built by people who are living out here most of which for free it's incredible it almost looks like a place that you pay $10 for a coffee in a city somewhere trying to look like a hipster place also got like seating areas and stuff out here too pretty peaceful out here when you're not hearing the uh explosions and gunshots from the gun range but it was a little Eerie the lack of people that's it that's the town library I don't think we're going to be checking out any books today all right it's exactly what you think it would be it's a library but it is way cooler than any other Library I've ever been in but Bill was telling me about this place and I am getting kind of hungry he was telling me about this restaurant that they have here which I think is that place that I drove by when I first came in that I said looked like a restaurant but he was telling me it opens it for and they've got burgers and hot dogs and other stuff like that so I'm going try to get lunch there today before we head out but now we're going over to another place that bill recommended which was does who is another slabber that's been living here for quite a while so we're going to go see if we can go check out her place as well further you get into this place they kind of the the worst the roads get and you can tell the toll it takes when it rains out here all of these washes turn into sloppy mud beds looks like we're pulling up on uh East Jesus here oh there's House of dots Hi how are you how's it going good are you uh dots Dotty yeah I heard uh I was talking to DNA down the street he said he had some of his work here I do that's pretty cool yeah um do you mind being film didn't no what's it for uh it's for YouTube I do a YouTube channel kind of traveling around the country I do have some of his one of his flowers is sitting right here which is kind of sad one of DNA's flowers his sculptures are pretty amazing yeah it's pretty hefty Duty man that's a significant flower right there bury that quite deep in order to get it to stand up yeah I can show you the other artwork that DNA did and I can also show you some of my stuff awesome sweet that'd be great yeah I've been uh trying to get out and meet as many people in the area as possible and just kind of talk and get the story of the people live here and just what it's like and that kind of stuff mhm well up in there that's my pool area which normally has it's all shaded and covered and right now it's really dirty and I'm probably going to fill it soon you fill it for the summer time yeah okay yeah and I'm probably going to go ahead and do it soon just cuz it's I haven't taken it down yet and I might as well yeah makes sense a lot of stuff here that's the Alice Wonderland dining room man it's a perfect day to come after a rainstorm when things are just real messy but up inside there is taxy dinner party you're welcome to take a look at my artwork in there okay so this is like so you have different sections of yes they're like immersion trailers immersion trailers and this is Taxidermy dinner party yep oh wow so what's the story behind this this is I'm guessing the taxor dinner party it's one of them this is Young Buck Uncle Buck and Grandma buck and Young Buck this is a time when deer have learned how to use guns and he's bragging about having shot this poor guy he's like he's just filling up his gas tank I'm hiding behind a tree and I just blast Ed him right in his face didn't even see it coming and Uncle Buck is all you know we can ethically resource humans from all sorts of organizations like poverty gang bangers drug addicts and homeless people super easy and Grandma's like stop talking talking politics and then this is another one over here yeah that's uh cat taop plasmosis cop horror type type artwork just that room it so you got to ignore the mess this is all of my mosquito netting that I had to take down from in there to fix my princess bed okay so this is your princess bed up here this is what makes it one that's one detail and not to mention we got the Mad Hatter and we also now have the cat oh yeah yeah how do you get all your stuff do you buy it or do you find it out here I don't buy anything anymore stuff just sort of comes people have a lot of stuff and people got to get get rid of their stuff and the desert is one of the places that you can bring your broken stuff your stuff that you're not willing to throw away yet because it's not quite garbage or even stuff that's still useful that's nice this is my book collection so you got your own little private Library I went to the library a little bit earlier and checked out some of the books there but this is cool yeah this is a smaller version a lot of um personal camps around have libraries there's that many books man and the library is even like no more books man like they want good books right and that's the kitchen don't even look at it like oh you told me to oh meow you did a good job you almost missed it a lot of people have cats around here too I I saw I met up with uh Charlie the bike guy Charlie the bike guy yeah yeah yeah he's that's where these cats came from how long have you been living out here only 5 years 5 years and you built all this in 5 years Yep this place is really cool well that's the bone collection col there make sure you look in the fridge and all that good stuff what bro you uh what brought you out here free camping free camping yep that seems like the the story of a lot of people out here free camping and they don't like the rules of yeah I have to admit that in my past I have done quite a few art projects um in places that I've lived like in my yard and stuff and living in areas where they're you know got HOAs and stuff like that it's not so cool to be yeah it seems like it seems like it's more so not the laws that they're trying to get away from but just the regulations and the rules and H of the world that you got always answer to but so this is your bone collection oh wow so are these these are just is that a flathead catfish uh y I found it on the beach oh really so you you find all these bones that's where you get them from I find most of them there's I guess there's a lot of uh places to find them on the shores of the salt and sea with all the yeah not many bones anymore um more bird bones there's a handful of um fish bones every s once a while like I said the catfish probably came down the canal so open the fridge there a lot of yeah yeah nowadays you can't trust anything you read on the internet for all I know the recent flooding took it up two feet yeah yeah so I can show you the uh best piece of artwork that I have done by DNA okay which is this dragonfly that oh my gosh I'm I try not to sell it but people are constantly trying to buy this sucker and I just keep putting really high do you sell any of yourart work or no yeah everything's for sale okay oh so that's one of his he showed me a smaller version of one of those that he had uh he had made as well but that's pretty incredible I mean he's got he's got some real skill oh yeah wow that's crazy really cool sick place you guys so you got solar panels you got power is that how you get power out here and oh I also have my bus full let's wander out this way and I'll show you the bus um that's a free store thrift store for the slabs basically so I like to take um the Clos donations when I get them and hang them all up and make them available to pretty much everybody who lives here and anybody who's in real need and this is all stuff that's free donated clothes yeah um this is not the good stuff that's why the good stuff goes in here this is stuff that like anybody literally if you want it it fine you probably need to wash it if you step up in here you got to step up in there I did a lot of work recently to make it look like all oh that's crazy you got so much stuff it's like a it's like a desert thrift store it is yep wow so is this all is this all donation clothes most of it I mean I have um bought some things in my past that are still in here uhhuh yeah it's fun when I see something that I've owned for 20 years finally find a new owner yeah this is usually it's somebody that's quite the collection thank you so that's just from donations of people that come out and visit and see the bus and then they come back out again or like you with your YouTube video channel you know they see oh wow so that's some place we can take our stuff uh and it goes to good use buiness cod oh sweet it's got my YouTube channel on it there you go the house of dots House of dots y I don't really do very much with it but I'll share yours when you post it appreciate it thank you I really appreciate you taking me around and show me your house cool and then I'll be here exit out this way and then if you uh feel like you need to get something in the shop oh is this like a gift shop y oh sweet I'll grab something on uh on the way out on my way out if you don't if you don't mind me asking uh I've been asking everybody what brings you out here well the free camping most part and then I've really always wanted to do some sort of crazy tourist attraction making art showing off my art okay sharing my messages which are odd and unusual but fun for me Y and then getting people to do weird things like climb through cabinets and such having an opportunity to do the things that I really want to do and not having anybody tell me I can't and then getting the support for what I'm doing that makes me want to keep doing it so my camera died as I was uh finishing my conversation with Dy but she is living maybe 100 ft from East Jesus which is this area over here which is apparently some sort of art installation where according to the people I've talked to people come out at artwork sounds like they have college kids out here also I had to take out my jacket cuz it was like I don't know if you can see my sweat stands it was getting even in the middle of January it's pretty hot out here but college kids come out here and build art along with I'm guessing the community members and all that kind of stuff some of these sculptures are massive too we even got like a star fighter car here bb-8 up top and then at Sith counterpart how's it going uh caretaker for the area what was your name ah here they called me wizard wizard do you mind if I record awesome so what's the what's the story behind East Jesus this art installation I haven't even checked it out yet but okay oh I'll give you the Spiel way greetings and welcome to East Jesus this is a sheltered workshop for the work ethic impaired they are not lazy they are work ethic impaired thank you we too have feelings this is the 501c3 420 and we have two rules rule number one everything is touchable rule number two if you touch it and it breaks tell them it was broke when you got here works every time sounds good that was nice meeting you thank you for the the intro Spiel I'll go check out some stuff yes crazy amount of art here and unlike other art museums the rule here is touch everything like this fuzzy lizard almost looks like medical gauze some of the stuff out here is actually so incredible it's like almost unbelievable and the people I mean the people are just completely different than what you would expect and what you see probably about this place online every single person I've talked to has been one of the friendliest welcoming people that I've ever met in my entire life it's been quite the experience walking around here meeting everyone and and just seeing the the culture and art that's out here it's really cool but yeah see please touch probably the only Art Museum you'll find in at least North America where you can touch everything oh look if you guys have been watching my channel for a while I went to the Kentucky Stonehenge which is like a 1110 scale version of the Stonehenge so now I'm at the Slab City Stonehenge almost looks like an elephant I think that's what it's supposed to be kind of see the tusks snoot they even got their own bowling alley I mean what doesn't this place have am I allowed to bowl you want try the bowling alley of yes all right you can do it bowling alley blow self-esteem that would have been a strike if there wasn't a bowling ball in the middle of all the pins just got done walking around East Jesus and it is crazy even in the middle of January 83° it's actually so hot out so I got the AC on and cranking but I was sitting here thinking about it and I'm sure you guys are wondering the same thing how this place actually came about and became kind of what it is so in case anyone is interested I'll give you guys the brief history of it basically how this place turned into what it is back before World War II the Marine Corps and the Army needed a training ground for field and anti-aircraft artillery units and they needed it in a place that was accessible by plane from San Diego and they needed around 600 acres which if you know anything about San Diego there's not a lot of places out there that are flat and have 600 acres of land that the government could just take for a training base so they settled on right here in Slab City and it was named after a General Robert Dunlap and it was changed to Camp Dunlap in 1942 and it was used for about 3 years until the training need reduced and then by 1949 operations significantly reduced but a skeleton crew kind of still stayed behind up until 1956 when it was demolished and all of the military huts and encampments were taken out but the only thing that was left behind was the slabs hence the name name SLB City and then fast forward just about 50 years and this is kind of what it's become an encampment for people who have been neglected by Society or feel like Outcast they come out here and they start a new life and as I've heard from some of the people that I've talked to since I've been here this place is actually technically owned by BLM which if you watch my channel a lot of the places that I camp in my van are BLM um so I'm not sure what's different about this place or why it's just gone unregulated maybe it's just because nobody knows how to deal with it or what to do about it because it's become so involved and so ingrained and there's so many people here and there's so many structures um but typically BLM land you can only stay out for 14 days and then you got to you got to get out but anyways I'm getting kind of hungry and it is right around that time where the restaurant in town or whatever it is opens up so go grab myself some food all right so I just drove over here to wrangler's roost of Slab City it looks like they got ice cream floats Banana Splits cold drinks and then apparently burgers and soda but I uh didn't get it on camera but there was a guy walking out when I was pulling up and I asked him if they were open and he said they're not going to be open today so sadly we cannot get ourselves a burger here in Slab City I guess maybe that's a blessing in disguise because probably isn't being made in a certified kitchen I mean yeah this is one of the most interesting places that I've ever been to in my entire life and honestly it has more sense of community than any other place or city that I've been to with everyone knowing each other and watching out for each other and having each other's backs and I'm sure there's some there's some bad eggs in there but everybody that I met today one of some of the friendliest people I've ever met but I haven't eat any yet since uh breakfast so I'm going to head into town grab some stuff for dinner and I'm going to take you guys down to the salt and sea where we're going to find a campsite in another town called Bombay Beach so we've just pulled into the town of Nyland I think that's how you say it that's how it looks how you say it for a lot of people who live out in Slab City this is their only kind of town they have access to where they can go get groceries and a lot of them only have bikes or can walk and I've been driving down this road and I've seen a lot of people walking in and out of Slab City I'm guessing coming down here to pick up some groceries cuz this is the closest is spot and it's still around 3 m away but it looks like there is a small market so see if we can't find something to cook for dinner tonight never seen beef bacon before thank you very much have a good one thank you it's a little crowded in there got everything we need let's go find ourselves a campsite we made it Bombay Beach and this is where we're going to be camping tonight right on the uh Sals and sea up there this town is very similar to Slab City in the way that it's kind of abandoned and dilapidated and there's only about 300 residents but it once was a bustling Beach Town Resort back in the 60s where people would pay large sums of money presidents came to um bunch of famous musicians and people would come out here and hang out for a multitude of reasons that I'll tell you about when once we get up here this is what it looks like now somewhat abandoned trailer hes from the' 60s while we're pulling up here over this little sand dun I guess this is where we're going to camp tonight I think I've been here before last time I came down in this area I did a whole video on this town so if you want to go see more about Bombay Beach and its history you can go watch that video so I won't get too much into it today but essentially it's an old abandoned well not abandoned cuz there's a bunch of people that still live here Resort on the sult and sea which we're about to see pulling up here in a second and that is her right there the sult and sea as you can probably tell there's a lot of the same theme going on in this town with art structures and stuff like that that's some sort of car plane mixture big star over there made out of concrete I don't know what that was supposed to be but never got finished and this actually right here used to be a boat dock or like a Marina where boats would pull in they'd have their boat slips up there they'd pull out and this would be the salt and sea right here but as you can see the water has receded all the way back to there and what I read online is it recedes at least right now around 2 ft per year which is a crazy amount so the story of the salt and sea starts around 1905 when the Colorado River swelled uh which breached one of their irrigation canals and water flooded into the sutan sink which is this area that you're looking at right out here and became what was known as the salt and sea so as I said on my drive over here this place is 200 50 ft below sea level so it's one of the lowest places on the planet and definitely in America so all water flows basically down into this area and when that irrigation Channel breached all the water flowed down filled up an ancient dry lake bed called the salt and sink and created what you see now is the Sut and sea and then long story short enough water flowed in from that irrigation canal breach that this body of water became California's largest lake and in turn brought a lot of tourists a lot of real estate developers and the this place became a boating water skiing Fisherman's Haven where they would come out and there was Resorts lined all the way down this beach up on the shore and as I said presidents have been here famous people singers in the ' 50s this place was so popular that they actually had more visitors than yosity national park did just to give you a little bit of perspective for how many people would come out here to Boat fish and do everything and I mean you can see how large this lake is you can't even see the other side I think that's CU there's a dust Haze which is big issue around here since this lake is drying up and has become toxic there's a lot of toxic particles in the sand and they get picked up and blown down into the valleys and apparently from what I was looking online the cancer rate in those valleys in children is like one to three times higher than the national average it's pretty crazy you might be wondering what happened and understandably so it was kind of a combination of both mother nature and people making mistakes that resulted in what you kind of see here and on the people side of things there was agricultural run run off that contained pesticides and harmful chemicals that leashed into the sea and made it toxic and then evaporations so I'm not sure I think there's a word for it but this lake is one of them it evaporates more water than it takes in so every year the sea was getting lower and lower increasing the solinity of the sea because it was on a salt bed so it was actually a salt body of water which further made it toxic and killed more fish and more birds and now it is a toxic body of water that you can't boat in can't fish in can't use to drink and is basically just sitting here becoming smaller and smaller and more and more toxic by the day in my opinion I think the suany is kind of a cautionary tale between humans and nature and the balance of the both and trying to do things that we can't really control and uh sometimes it ends up like this so my mic died right before I uh walked up to the van but you guys didn't really miss much basically just saying I'm coming up here to make some dinner and when I was at the store I saw this meat that I've never seen before maybe I have and it was called something different or it's just I've never really looked that hard but you called it beef bacon and then another word I forget what it was but I was asking him he didn't speak English very well but I just pointed at it and I said is it good on tacos and he said great on tacos and then listed a bunch of other ingredients on the tacos so we're going to cook up some beef bacon taco bowls cuz I'm trying to eat a little healthier cuz cuz I put on a few pounds and someone commented on my video the other day that looks like I put on 20 so Taco B's a little bit healthier than a taco cuz you don't have the tortilla also I know the guy from the internet cafe told me that I could stay in his lot and they offer free parking there but I've honestly got nothing against parking there or staying there it's just I knew that this was 10 minutes down the road and it's a little bit more private Scenic so there's no point in me staying overnight in his parking lot when I know that this is so closed so let's get to making some tacos first things first as always apron save my pants and then we'll get to prepping I didn't have any lettuce at the store but I got this Caesar salad kit to use and this is kind of like an all-in-one Ryan toi video you got the adventure and you got the cooking usually I do one or the other cuz I only have energy for either adventuring or cooking but I had a lot of fun with making today's video and it wasn't too uh too much so still got the energy to make some taco bowls this knife is so sharp actually before we do the uh prep work I want to get the rice started cooking cuz I don't have a rice cooker so it's going to take a little bit longer now that we've got that done we can finish prepping so this is what it looks like I don't know if it's just a cut out of a ribeye or what it is but it just essentially looks like a gigantic piece of super super thick bacon smells good it's already pre-seasoned so I guess we'll find out how it tastes look at the sunset spectacular o smells so good oh I'm so excited and now we'll just repeat that the other two pieces of the beef bacon this smells so good we have all the ingredients for our Taco bow got wait for the R to finish actually one thing I forgot warm up some of this corn and beans then we'll have everything ready now let's get a bowl assembled and eat R going in the bottom and then some beans and corn lettuce tomato onon and a bunch of this meat and then to top this bad boy off hit her with a little salsa sour cream and a little bit of coita cheese bone Apple teeth so I think slab city is probably one of the if not the most interesting places I've ever been in my years of traveling and I've been to a lot of places it's not the most picturesque by far it's not the most scenic by far there's a lot of things that it doesn't have but based on the few interactions that I had with the small subset of the population that I did interact with seems like a real genuine place not a uh Lawless place where people can go if they just want to break the law and be vandals and I really do agree that it is one of the last free places at least in America and every time I meet new people out it always reminds me that it doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing or how good the view is or how amazing the area is the number one thing that makes a place is its people after years of being on the road some of my Fondest Memories Are from people that I've met and things that I've done with other people not necessarily the places that I've gone to by myself because when you have someone to share with or you have a good group of people around you it makes that memory just so much better but I don't know if that makes any sense essentially what I'm trying to get at is you can be happy pretty much anywhere if you surround yourself with good people and everyone I met today might not be normal by your average societal standards but they were definitely good people I really enjoyed the conversations we had anyways this Taco bow absolutely delicious whatever this beef bacon is couldn't have made it better myself I think that's going to be it for this video before I finish this taco bowl watch whatever I have left of my Sunset outside it's already pretty dwindled down and then just hun it out of the van get this door closed and probably play some power worlds which is a new game that I've been playing on my Xbox came out a few days ago fully addicted to it so as always I truly appreciate you guys watching if you haven't already think about clicking that subscribe button it really does help out the channel I think soon here I'm going to be getting out of the Heat and driving up North but for now I will catch you guys next [Music] time