Heading to Niland, CA - The Slabs!

2/23/10 Tuesday


Moving day again. The trailer is all hooked up and everything secured for travel. The first stop will be, yes, the hot spring for one final time. A quick change and at 11L50am we are heading for Brawley, CA. Brawley is the closest place with a Wal-Mart to Holtville.

The stupid GPS found the address which was in the map but it was just a field. Maybe all this produce growing here goes to Wal-Mart. We drove on into Brawley and asked a man about the location of Wal-Mart only to be told that he speaks only a little English. (Brawley looks to be mostly of Mexican heritage.) He gave us directions by saying and pointing – “McDonald’s” and pointing straight ahead, “Wa-mat” and pointing to the left. Hey, what else do you need to know besides these two places?

Wal-Mart seemed to have taken on a southwest flare in their design and décor here. This store has only been here about a year. No one at the store seemed in a pleasant mood. No one was smiling or happy.

After a fast sandwich, I finally found a lady to ask about the location of a laundry and where the cheapest gas is in town. She at least was in a fairly good mood.

Laundry done and gas tank filled, we are on the road again. The next stop will be the rest stop on the north side of Calpatria. The rest stop here is very RV friendly. It has two dump stations with water. Yea for the CA DOT!

Seven miles further on is Niland. A few days ago, we sent the yahoo boondocking group a request for someone at The Slabs to meet us and take us into the slabs. Seann answered and told us to call him from Niland and someone from the group would come meet us. We also received an email from Chili Bob saying he would be glad to show us around.

Both Seann and Chili Bob met us at the Post Office. There was no sign to The Slabs and if you don’t know where you are going, you would miss the turn off. We hit a detour due to a med evac helicopter. The police made us go in the back way instead of letting us wait.

It was 5:30pm when we pulled in. The folks next to us, Golfer Mary and Golfer Rich, came over and offered supper by the group fire which we readily accepted with much thanks.

Tomorrow Chili Bob will give us the grand tour of The Slabs.
Yawn, another long hard day!