I've lived in Palm Springs since 2004, the same year I started Dry Heat Resorts.  I'm a fan of road trips, especially ones that take me down parts of Route 66 or into towns and cities that feature diners, gas stations, motels and other googie architectural structures.  In case you didn't know, googie architecture is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture, jets, the Space Age, and the atomic age. Think the Jetsons.  It originated in Southern California with the streamline modern architecture of the 1930s, and was popular nationwide from roughly 1945 to the early 1970s.  I'm a SoCal native so was surrounded by it while growing up in the 70s and 80s.  

Since moving here, I've heard stories about a squatter city that exists a little more than an hour away.  I've never gone, but finally decided to check it out.  It's called slab city.  I went there this past weekend, and it exceeded my expectations.  It was certainly larger than I expected.  It was also more populated.  The constant driving from both residents and onlookers alike, have actually compressed the dirt into discernable roads.  Neighborhoods exist within the "city".  I even saw parts of the city occupied by expensive RVs that seemed to create rich neighborhoods in a community made up of people that mostly moved there to escape the grind that would create wealth.  On the other end of the economic spectrum, the poorest of Slab City's residents lived in tents attached to lifeless desert shrubs.  In the middle class sections were archaic burned out RVs surrounded by abandoned cars which formed their property lines.  A hostel, Internet cafe, library and other small businesses occupy resident's "homes" as well.  It's a community of outcasts, nomads and rebels who chose to leave civilization behind and accidentally created their own, a civilization designed by people who don't give a Fuck.  How ironic.

Following are a few pictures I took on my trip to Slab city.  I encourage my guests to journey there to see something different, interesting and fascinating.  The drive out there will take you past the Salton Sea and its abandoned communities made up of googie architectural treasures.