Date Palms grow in groves and produce many different types of dates, our favourite being the Medjool. If you look closely, to the right side of each tree, there is a ladder hanging from the foliage. This is left to make pruning, manual pollination and harvesting much easier. I am told that one male date palm can pollinate up to one hundred female date palms; the date palm is considered mature at 7-10 years and can produce up to 275 pounds of dates in a season, not all ripening at the same time, so many harvests are required. To protect the fruit from birds and storm damage, the clusters are covered by fan-like sheets of papers or shrouds. We visited The Oasis near Indio, CA, for the taste-testing of many varieties of this very sweet fruit, purchasing a pound of medjools and enjoying a date shake. Delicious!
This is the entrance to the Slabs or Slab City as it is known, Salvation Mountain, a three storey hill of sand and adobe festooned with Bible Verses. It is said that "oops" paints were poured upon the sand dunes for this creation and ongoing project by long time resident, Leonard Knight. Slab City takes its name from the concrete slabs and pylons that remain from the abandoned World War II base Marine Barracks Camp Dunlap, where General Patton trained military tanks. A group of servicemen remained after the base closed, and the place has been inhabited ever since. The site is both decommissioned and uncontrolled, and there is no charge for parking. It is a winter haven for snowbird RV boondockers and about 100 permanent residences, about 3 miles east of Niland, CA on the east side of the beautiful Salton Sea.
There is no water or electricity here, so many use generators or solar panels for power. All transport water in large drums or fill their rig tanks from the grocery store in Niland. Shacks to tents to expensive motorhomes can be found at the Slabs; there is a library and a church and the school bus transports to nearby Niland and Indio.
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