What's Bigger Shithole? The Salton Sea or New Jersey Turnpike

vs.

http://www.route40.net/images/loc/5a21468r.jpg

I actually kind of like both of them.

?!?

I also think Houston is beautiful.

That adds up, actually.

(If the Turnpike has the Garden State Parkway as it's foil, what has the Salton Sea? Tahoe?)

http://www.america-dreamz.com/californie/paysages/photos/salton_bombay02-06.jpg

i don't know about "beautiful"--- though i do sense the appeal of the open mental vacation gulf breeze thing they got goin' on there, esp. now that i've lived elsewhere for 11 years.

Yeah I found this by typing "salton sea shithole" in google.

They like to claim it's not an industrial accident, and actually a natural lake. What on earth?

Not as spooky as those dried up Russian lakes, but still strange looking.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theorem/63521365/sizes/o/

kinda reminiscent of the aral sea

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seemoo/2075709338/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenaardell/sets/72157601012970193/

good set here

I want to see the Salton Sea.

The Salton Sea, located in the southeastern corner of California, is actually a lake which occupies a desert basin known as the Salton Sink. This body of water covers a surface area of 376 square miles, making it larger than Lake Tahoe and Mono Lake. In fact, the Salton Sea is the largest lake in California. The Sea’s current elevation is about 227 feet below mean sea level, its maximum depth reaches 51 feet and its total volume is about 7.5 million acre-feet.

The Salton Sea has a unique make-up. By virtue of its location in the Colorado Desert ecosystem, an area with average annual precipitation of less than 3 inches per year, the Sea receives minimal inflow from rain.

As an agricultural drainage reservoir, the Salton Sea serves an important purpose for the productive agricultural valleys that adjoin it. As an agricultural sump, the Sea consists primarily of commercial agricultural drainage. In fact, 90 percent of the entire inflow to the Sea is agricultural runoff from the Imperial, Coachella, and Mexicali Valleys.

This inflow carries nutrients, such as phosphates and nitrates, which support the rich and abundant life in the Sea. The inflow also carries an abundance of salt (and, thus, the Sea’s name). Currently, the salinity level of the Salton Sea is 44 parts per thousand (ppt), compared to 280 ppt for Utah’s Great Salt Lake, about 210 ppt for Israel’s Dead Sea, 87 ppt for Mono Lake and 35 ppt for the Pacific Ocean.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/water/archives/RP_SALTON_SEA_BOMBAY.JPG

http://bluevitriol.com/uploaded_images/403px-Salton_Sea_NewRiver-725991.jpg

http://www.realtyillustrated.com/misc/SaltonSeaBeach.jpg

salton sea is fascinating i wanna go - anyone read that harpers articles abt the scene around there omg!

the end of the earth or the last place in california to be gentrified

It was a cheap-o resort in the 50s/60s right? I think I saw something on TV about it.

The turnpike is not a shithole because for most of it's length you can go about 10 miles off it and be in some of the nicest not to mention wealthiest communities in america.

http://www.filmfestivalworld.com/fileadmin/media/film/Pleasures_and_Plagues_of_the_Salton_Sea/1_full.jpg

I think Salton Sea was developed in the 50s as a resort and palm desert type community, oops.

http://www.msu.edu/~rudya/RichardMisrachDivingBoard-SaltonSea-1983.jpg

http://www.tfaoi.com/am/7am/7am236.jpg

yah that picture of the fish - because of all the runnedoff agricultural chemicals its simultaneously super-fertile and poisonous.

super-fertile and poisonous

kinda like vodka.

This is so what James Howard Kunstler wants Phoenix and Las Vegas to turn into in his fever dreams

of course the jersey turnpike has its charms

http://www.northeastroads.com/new_jersey999/nj_tpk_sb_exit_003_04.jpg

Whoooahah how is this even a contest?? I'd rather camp on the banks on the NJT in the rain, than have to go to this Salton place. Yuck x a million.

>>I want to see the Salton Sea.

Re one of your photos: Make sure to go after a mass tilapia die off for the full experience. Since it happens regularly, you've a fifty-fifty chance of experiencing the result on any random trip.

Have gone there a couple of times and the odor caused by masses of salt-dried dead fish on the shore, floating dead fish and the brine of the sea itself is found nowhere else in the States. While it's far from pleasant, it's not horrendous and one does get used to it.

the jersey turnpike is famous for its smell too!

this is me next to the salton sea
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/40/82316922_b95da6f047.jpg?v=0
I have never bothered to take a picture on the NJT

the jersey turnpike is famous for its smell too!

this section of california 47 appears as the jersey turnpike in being john malkavich

http://www.westcoastroads.com/california/images025/ca-047_sb_exit_004_01.jpg

The Monster That Challenged the World was a '57 sci-fi flick made when the Salton Sea was a resort. Giant man-eating snails come out of the bottom of the Sea and eat various people, threaten scientists and military men before being stamped out. Not nearly as bad as it sounds.

What are you talking about, it sounds AWESOME.

Fun fact: There is a prison in Calipatria, a remote hole near the Salton Sea. When the punk rock fanzine biz was in full swing in the Eighties, a prisoner at Calipatria was known for sending postcards to various editors. I used to get a few. My memory may be wobbly on this but I believe he called himself Shane, the punk rock -- or rock 'n' roll -- bank robber.

Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (Narr. John Waters)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhB2ZvHVFls

We stumbled on this place on a holiday from Australia - and then, for an encore, stumbled on Salvation Mountain and Slab City, and then the US navy bombing range! It was a helluva day, like walking into a David Lynch movie or something.

Salton Sea itself was bleakly inspiring, like a dark dream. It was simultaneously panoramic, dreamlike, beautiful and horrible.

Salton Sea is like Throbbing Gristle, man.

yr trip sounds so cool, moley, and very well put, that's the way I imagine the salton. tho the jersey turnpike is also "simultaneously panoramic, dreamlike, beautiful and horrible."

http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/04nov/images/pisano6.jpg

http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates/large_crash12

http://www.veritography.com/mt-archives/P3020110.JPG

ok that's the geo wash bridge right before i-95 turns into the jersey turnpike. southern terminus is just before the delaware memorial bridge

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1238/549705866_f1e3b8095c.jpg

viewed from underneath
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/394848791_67e7fe4039.jpg

http://www.walterhunt.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/Balt07_03.JPG

The Sopranos' theme just started going off in my head.

no trucks in AR?

More of an xpost to the under-the-bridge photo. Reminded me of when they buried that guy.

There are many trucks in Arkansas. I-40 is damn near a NAFTA route.

that's the meadowlands

http://www.stevensiegelphotonj.com/Artists/1859/ImCache/450_310_62200725452PM_Turnpike%20-%20Hackensack%20River%20Br.%20--%20egret%20in%20fgd.jpg

http://www.bookcourt.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/meadowlands.jpg

the jersey turnpike can't compare to

http://www.rwmaudio.com/images/PTCD2.jpg

http://www.mapsofpa.com/stateofficial/1981_0146.jpg

The problem with the evidence against the NJT is that I love container yards, shipping zones, the Meadowlands, and that weird refinery place that is like several acres with little white lights on top of everything, that looks like a moon base space station at night.

http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/66/16244707.jpg

PA TURNPIKE:

CLASSIC: The tunnels
DUD: Carlisle, PA, where you have to leave the interstate to get to the other interstate.

weird refinery place that is like several acres with little white lights on top of everything, that looks like a moon base space station at night.

my girlfriend's mom used to tell her they were alien villages. Or maybe she came up with that herself.

PA TURNPIKE:

CLASSIC: The tunnel

http://felix.syscode.co.kr/pics/newyork3-13.jpg

http://www.pumpwarehouse.com/kit.jpg

http://www.gribblenation.com/breezewood/alleghenytunnel69-yenerall.jpg

http://go.owu.edu/~jbkrygie/krygier_gif/sidelingtunnel.gif

This is one of the greatest ever ILX picture threads.

yah that picture of the fish - because of all the runnedoff agricultural chemicals its simultaneously super-fertile and poisonous.

also probably because the nutrients in the water make algae grow, and the algae suck up all the oxygen the fish need to breathe.

anyway the real answer to this thread is the smithfield hog farms:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters

http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/5/6/8/0/12840865-12840868-slarge.jpg

Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea is up on karagarga fyi

the jersey turnpike can't compare to (the pennsylvania turnpike)

true dat -- past the philly suburbs and almost straight to pittsburgh, i don't think my speedometer was at less than 75 mph at any point. (i could say the same about much of the NY thruway, for that matter.)

plus, i've NEVER seen a bear on the NJ turnpike -- while i've seen one on the PA turnpike about 45 minutes east of pittsburgh.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20100327_History_or_cash__N_J__weighs_changes_on_turnpike.html

"The other week, I passed the Joyce Kilmer rest stop and thought about his poetry. Some of the [stops'] names trigger the thoughts that there is important, worthwhile history in New Jersey," she said.

Drove past the Salton Sea late on Monday night. I don't know that area very well. Couldn't see the sea but I could sure smell it from the car. It smelt like a fart that Bowser might make. The Imperial sand dunes, the weirdness of downtown Brawley (what kind of town is this??). Seemed like a fascinating area that I'd like to revisit.

smelled

'Salton Sea' even sounds like a Mario level.

yeah did I mention I also found 3 power stars?

On the way out to Austin, we stopped at that apocalypse beach on the Salton Sea.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2939/13960481940_db9fbb4f93.jpgSalt Creek Beach, Salton Sea

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7443/14123932376_66624e6aac.jpgSalt Creek Beach, Salton Sea

PA TURNPIKE:

CLASSIC: The tunnels
DUD: Carlisle, PA, where you have to leave the interstate to get to the other interstate.

― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, February 13, 2008 5:42 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's breezewood, n00b