It was a road trip to Joshua Tree, nothing new - But then I saw the sign. "Mecca - 18 Miles." When you see a sign pointing the road to Mecca, how can you not go?
Mecca is kind of this craphole town that can't even keep the head on their muffler man. Not much to see there, but nearby was the Salton Sea.
The Salton Sea is a big inland lake. They tried to make a tourist destination out of it once, but all the seaside villages have long been abandoned. You'll see why.
The Salton Sea was formed when a huge flood burst a canal in 1901. By the time they'd sealed the breach, California's largest lake had formed.
But the problem is that it's completely unnatural. The sea is fed by runoff from all the area farms. It's completely full of near-toxic levels of fertilizer runoff.
The water is brown and literally fizzing like coca-cola.
But it doesn't end there. All the fertilizer feeds the algae in the water and the algae goes crazy. It goes out of control and fills the whole lake. With so much algae to eat, the fish multiply exponentially until there's millions and millions of them.
But then the seasons change and there's not as much fertilizer and the algae starves to death. With nothing to eat, the fish and birds of the Salton Sea have massive die-offs. Literally tons of dead fish wash up on the beaches and rot.
Look closer: THAT'S NOT SAND.
The beach is made entirely of the bones of dead fish and dried-out barnacle shells. If you walk with no shoes, the beach will slice your feet to shreds
And yet, these guys want to fish in it...
It's the only beach I've ever been to that had to put up interpretive signs to explain the SMELL.