#theslabs

[polecat-prod]

#slabcity #theslabs #charlieparr

[polecat-prod]

Charlie Parr sings Remember Me if I Forget live in Slab City, CA

[bbqrubs]

A proven competition bbq beef rub that helped @TheSlabs Competition BBQ team win first place for Brisket at the American Royal Open. https://www.bbqrubs.com/the-slabs-wow-up-your-cow-competition-bbq-rub.html #BeefItsWhatsForDinner #WowUpYourCow #TheSlabs #bbqrubs #bbq #bbqlife https://www.instagram.com/p/CBBAr_dH27d/?igshid=kw34qj5kt6ib

[sunnypsyopx]

The 10 photo limit is not enough for all the photos I have at the sculpture garden in Slab City.. 🌞🏜️🏚️ @droogy666 #salvationmountain #slabcity #offthegrid #theslabs #eastjesus #westsatan #sculpturegarden #saltonsea #bealroad #niland #imperialcounty #california #desert #art #travel #108degrees #outdooradventures #adventurers #nofilter #seanstone #oifriend #favoritecreep #malchick #bestfriend #iloveaskinhead #luckiestgirlintheworld #loveyourlife

[recipethisblog]

New recipe = The Lazy Guide To Pulled Pork Burgers With The Slabs Review: The best way to impress a teenage boy is to offer him pulled pork, but then to tell him that A) he can have it more often now as it is easier and B) that it has his name on the jar then you can imagine how impressed he was! So if you want to impress the boys in your life or you want to make pulled pork with less prep, then thanks to The Slabs you now can. Get the recipe by clicking the link http://recipethis.com/the-lazy-guide-to-pulled-pork-burgers-with-the-slabs-rub/

[smokerbuilder]

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Progress report. #Brisket #IronManCookersUDS #UDSNation #handmade in the #USA #IronManCan #ButchersInjection #TheSlabs #WowYourCow #livinlarge

[avoidantcool]

We’re all here because we’re not all there

For the past month, I’ve been staying in Slab City, which is an off-grid community considered “the last free place in America.”

Our campsite (my RV is the second from the right) - photo taken by Bear8Photo

Slab City, or the Slabs, is a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, it’s where the wild west meets hippies. From a practical standpoint, as a full-time RVer, I love not having to worry about where I’m going to be tomorrow – typically, if I boondock (dry camp), there are limits to where and how long you can park; if I stay at a park, there’s the daily/weekly/monthly cost. And then the local activities are perks on top of that – hot springs, a canal (Toby loves to swim!), hiking/offroading areas, movie nights, “spoken word” events, open mic nights, acoustic nights, East Jesus (an art installation founded by a Burner!), etc. As a full-time nomad, it can sometimes be hard to not be a part of a community. The Slabs offer a community that is accustomed to the transitory lifestyle, so I actually quickly felt like I was part of the community.

Teddy, Toby, and neighbor dogs playing at the canal

For some, the Slabs are necessity – financially or emotionally. The job market isn’t that great right now, and some seek the quiet and/or desire to be left alone. For others, it’s hippielandia – the promised land for rubber and leather tramps alike (nomads on wheel and foot, respectively), made famous by the late Christopher McCandless, whose adventures in the Slabs were featured in the book and movie about his life, “Into the Wild.” To others, it represents freedom from the oppression of government and failing of society. The snowbirds (many Canadian) appear to like the free camping, great winter weather, and breadth of activities in the area – both in and around the Slabs. It is almost akin to a free adult summer camp. And then there are “tourons” (tourist morons), who look and gawk but will lock the doors of their fancy sports cars if a Slabber gets too close. (I’m sure there are other reasons as well, these are just what I can recall off the top of my head.) Some people stay less than an hour to see Salvation Mountain, others have been here for decades… and you’ll find just about any length of stay in between when you talk to Slabbers. There are weekenders, week-to-month-long and seasonal residents, and full-time Slabbers who endure the 120* of the summer. 

It was actually the Slab City reviews by tourons that brought me to the Slabs. I’d seen the Vice documentary, which sparked the interest of a couple of guys I’ve dated, but it didn’t intrigue me much. I’ve been around my share of crazy people – it didn’t seem that special. However, I saw some pompous reviews where people said it was only worth a brief afternoon visit to Salvation Mountain. I figured I probably wouldn’t like the reviewers, so I’d probably like the Slabs. Surprisingly, I wasn’t actually wrong.

Toby enjoying the Slabs - photos taken by Bear8Photo

Before coming down, I had been lucky enough to make friends with a full-time Slabber on Facebook who looks out for Slab dogs. It was nice to come in knowing there was at least one person I was going to get along with. Every trip has its hiccups though, and I’m not really sure how I even stayed when, on my first day, I learned about the self-proclaimed cannibal (who has a sign outside of his camp advertising this aspect of his life), and the next morning, a tiny woman in a large van pulled up to my friends’ camp and started threatening them for “stealing” her dog, which had just shown up on its own a few days prior and never left. That’s definitely one thing about the Slabs – there’s no shortage of drama or whisper-down-the-lane gossip. (On New Years, there was supposedly a stabbing, which had been told to me by a few different sources. A week later, we learned it was apparently something along the lines of a black eye.) I'm glad I stuck around though - as with any city, there are unsafe components, but if you use common sense you'll be okay.

However, Slab City is also a pretty small group of people. Through Facebook and an RV social networking website (RVillage), I knew there was a fellow full-time RVer around my age visiting the Slabs. A mutual friend had told me he was there, so of course I Facestalked him, but hadn’t bothered to message him. He is a photographer (Bear8Photo) with a black and white dog. On New Years at The Range (the music/performance space in Slab City), I saw a young 30-something guy with a camera taking pictures of the performance. He seemed a little too clean to have been here for long. And then I saw a black and white dog lingering around him. So, I went up and asked if he was Jeremy – he had no idea who the hell I was at first, until I mentioned RVillage, and apparently he had messaged me earlier (but I hadn’t yet checked the website that day).

I ended up moving my RV and settling next door to Jeremy for the next three weeks. We had a couple of neighbors, snowbirds from Oregon, with whom we would periodically cook, enjoy fires, and sometimes take trips to town (Walmart is a BIG adventure, and I ended up only going on one Walmart excursion). It was nice to have someone with a similar background and motive to explore the Slabs with… we were even both from Pennsylvania. However, our similarities beyond being young full-timers with dogs from Pennsylvania were minimal. He lives off of savings and selling pictures on street corners; no bills, no known steady source of income. The opposite of me. He quit a job to live on the road; I wouldn’t hit the road until I knew I had a job. (I think he is much braver than I.)

Jeremy, me, and Chuck (our neighbor) offroading at Bradshaw Trail

Offroading by an active bombing range

After four weeks here, my time in the Slabs is beginning to wind down for the season. Jeremy left yesterday for San Diego, and it feels a bit like summer camp is ending. Saying goodbyes is always sad, and probably the second worst part of my lifestyle (behind dumping the black and grey water tanks). However, I feel strongly that this is a place I can always come back to when life allows, and I like having that to look forward to.

That said, I am currently preparing for my next adventure. I was supposed to head east to Louisiana, but unfortunately, my dear friend Alia in Las Vegas has been diagnosed with cancer (you can see her story here). So, I’m going to head to Phoenix for a little bit to see my friends Gen and Jon (who is a contestant of King of the Nerds this season, so you should all watch it!), and will then be heading back up to Las Vegas to spend some time with Alia and help her with her upcoming book. My plans seem to change quite a bit the longer I'm on the road, but I really appreciate that I lead a life that allows me such flexibility.

[avoidantcool]

Ringing in the New Year in Slab City, California

First and foremost, happy New Year to all of you and happy 6 months of full-time RVing to me!

I’m finally back in the blog-o-sphere. It’s been a while, but I’ve finally taken enough of a break from the computer that I feel up to updating this old thing.

I spent just about five weeks in South Lake Tahoe (which a part of me misses very much. Good people, good food, and fantastic nature, what more could a girl want?). Just before Christmas, I migrated south through Nevada and am now in Slab City for a short spell. This is an off-grid community/campsite. It is an interesting, unique community that the documentaries do not adequately portray.

I am fortunate to be camping at the site of some full-time Slabbers who run the junkyard, which is apparently the oldest campsite at the Slabs (or so I'm told). Many here are snowbirds, and a few tough individuals stay here year-round; these awesome folks are the latter. Also, I haven't really had to worry about safety with a pack of 11 junkyard dogs around! This is a particularly interesting find in the junkyard (points if you can figure out why... hint: I have no idea what a bionol capacitor does):

There’s so much to write on my experience here that I will hold off on relaying my experience until I’ve spent some time here. In short, it's basically hippies meets the wild west (with some less-preferable tweakers mucking about). I imagine this is what Burning Man would be like if it were year-round and not quite so pretentious.

On an unrelated note, the more I travel in my RV, the more I realize that my heart is in the west. I don’t mean the California coast or the big shiny cities (like Las Vegas). I mean the deserts and the mountains. There’s something pretty amazing about being able to go from civilization to the middle of nowhere in nature in just a few minutes and the wide open spaces you just don’t get on the east coast. I will always be proud to be a northeasterner, but I don’t know if I could ever willingly choose to live back east again…