Along the Salton Sea

The past two nights I have had to push my bike up steep, rocky embankments and then over sets of railroad tracks to reach a place to pitch my tent in semi-desert terrain. Lifting the bike over the tracks is no easy task as they are much higher than one might suspect. It’s much more of a strain in the morning when I’m still a bit stiff, but still worth the effort.

My first foray over the tracks I camped amongst some bushes, but the second along the Salton Sea was in more desolate terrain with little vegetation. It was the steep embankment that shielded me from the vision of whoever might be out.  Both offered enough isolation that I had no concerns of my headlamp being spotted.  I could sit and eat and read in total relaxation after a thoroughly satisfying day on the bike.

It has been a relief to escape into wide open empty spaces with plenty of breathing room after days and days of sprawl down the coast and out of Los Angeles.  But even approaching the Salton Sea through the desert hasn’t been wholly bereft of development, as there was a thirty mile stretch of it beginning with Palm Springs to Palm Desert and beyond including a hodgepodge of communities with names developers thought might entice retirees and others to take up residence—Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Mecca, Coachella, La Quinta, Thermal.  I rode streets named for Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Sonny Bono and Gerald Ford.  The vast oasis of palm trees were a pleasing site, but all the new construction could only make me think “Will it never end.”


The developers have been relentless in this state either to accommodate the non-stop flow of new residents or to attract even more.  California appears to be packed to the bursting point, but that isn’t stopping more from coming.  The roads are at near peak capacity all day.  The amount of traffic is boggling.  My head is continually spinning wondering, “Where could all these people possibly be going and where are they coming from.”

I finally had a relief from the tyranny of the car when I came to the Salton Sea and took the lesser used road on its eastern side, a little longer than the road on the west, down to El Centro and Calexico, two large cities at the bottom of the state well inland from San Diego, who both have Carnegies, the last of my California harvest. I could have opted for an official campsite along the lake, whose surface is over 200 feet below sea level, in the fifteen-mile long state park along the northern half of the lake, but there was too much daylight remaining to stop, so I did as I prefer, found a campsite of my own.  The desert terrain was desolate other than a few run-down homes along the lake before the park and a woefully weathered sign advertising that Lots had once been for sale.

This was the second one hundred mile stretch between Carnegies in these travels.  It came after a set of four within fifty miles beginning in Claremont with the Pomona College Carnegie.  It was the grandest building on this small campus of 1,700 students that accepts less than ten per cent of its applicants, a lower percentage than the Ivies. It’s gargantuan four columns would have been the pride of any Roman Temple going back to antiquity.  A plaque by the entry to this now political science building simply stated “Presented by Andrew Carnegie,” the first time I had seen his gift acknowledged in such a formal manner.

A plaque on the Carnegie in Upland four miles to the east also had a unique lofty tone to it.  It stated the library, built in 1913, was the city’s first civic building and “represents the desire of Upland residents to have an education center for the community.”  It has been replaced by a very austere, institutional building a block away that could be mistaken for a penitentiary, quite a contrast to the warm, inviting appeal of the original, which another plaque honored saying the building “continues as Upland’s center of community life.”

I didn’t make it to Colton’s similarly warm, attractive Carnegie until dark, so I had to scramble to find a place to camp in the midst of this fifty-mile stretch of cheek-by-jowl mass of development.  My map showed several possibilities—a cemetery, a golf course, a high school football stadium and several churches.  On the way to the cemetery I spotted a boarded-up night club with a large fenced-in field behind it.  The fence was collapsed near the fence protecting the golf course.  The fence on the golf course had a sign warning trespassers would be jailed.

It was dark so no one could see me struggling to heft my bike over the sagging fence into the post-industrial field full of rubble.  There were no trees to hide behind, but I was far enough into the field to feel secluded.  An hour later someone shined a flash light on my tent and asked, “who’s there.”  It was a watchman.  I told him I wasn’t homeless but was just passing through and would be gone first thing in the morning.  He told me there was a homeless encampment nearby on the other side of the fence.  He said he didn’t mind if I stayed, but if the owner came along he’d call the police.

I didn’t think that was too likely on a Saturday night, so said I would take my chances, and if he did, hope I could appeal to his good will.  The guard hinted that if I gave him some money, he would tell the owner I was okay.  I pretended I didn’t hear that.  Then he asked if I had a cigarette.  He seemed to be an agreeable sort, so rather than uprooting myself, I remained.  I had no more interruptions and a good night’s sleep.

It was a fine start to the day laying my eyes on the stately Carnegie a little over a mile away.  It was another Carnegie turned into a local museum.  I had hoped to be there by three the day before for a program on the community trying to secure a $4 million grant for a soccer field.  Tim attended.  He said there were a lot of children with their parents excited about the possibility and willing to do whatever it would take to gain the grant.

The Carnegie in Beaumont came near the end of the sprawl that extended one hundred miles to the east of Los Angeles.  It had been expanded in 1966 and had had other improvements over the years allowing it to continue as the town’s library, including the addition of an elevator in 2008 and drought-resistant landscaping in 2010.  Its proud history was documented on a mini-billboard on the side of the building.

Ten miles from the library, the route I had selected to Palm Springs took me through the Morongo Native American Reservation.  The guard at the gated entry told me bicyclists weren’t allowed to pass through the reservation as a couple of cyclists had been hit a few years ago. He told me about a frontage road along Interstate Ten that my GPS didn’t indicate went through.  That was actually a flatter and more direct route.  The road was rough, but had virtually no traffic.  It paralleled the busy train tracks and provided a place to camp as well.  Though it’s never good news to have to backtrack, I was not regretting it even though I was subjected to the buzz of traffic on the Interstate beside me.  I knew I would have a fine place to camp and could keep riding right up to dark with little worries, capping Another Great Day on the Bike.