10 most boring places in California (Ontario, Merced: home, shops, bars)

[pretendingtowork]

Originally Posted by Think4Yourself

There is a good documentary on the decline of the Salton Sea and the associated cities around it like Salton City (it spends more time on the decline of Bombay Beach though as that area was considered more glitzy in the 1930's through 1950's). It's well worth watching.

I have seen it and it was quite good. In fact it made me want to check it out. While not loud and full of people, I thought it was peaceful and had a type of beauty no other place has. Very unique and I like that about the area.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Good that they think Lakewood should be on the list. Now that the hipsters have discovered all the Midcentury Modern homes there, it already faces becoming overpriced. No need to hype it.

(BTW - DTLB and the emerging "fun corridor"* along the 91 are ever so close ... ).

* New Wave Restaurant

[Twinkle Toes]

Really??? Victimville and Hysteria ... boring??? Say, I didn't see BORON on that list!!!

[Twinkle Toes]

Originally Posted by pretendingtowork

I have seen it and it was quite good. In fact it made me want to check it out. While not loud and full of people, I thought it was peaceful and had a type of beauty no other place has. Very unique and I like that about the area.

I was just out at the Salton Sea on Saturday! Just for a day trip, something different to look at, get away from home kind of trip. We stopped at this place:

Banana Museum: World’s Largest Collection Of Banana Related Items | One Cool Thing Every Weekend


I tried to get my hubby to go out to Salvation Mountain and Slab City, but he just wasn't feelin' it.

[aboveordinary]

Other cities that weren't mentioned:

Blythe
Trona
Barstow
Bakersfield

[Think4Yourself]

Originally Posted by pretendingtowork

I have seen it and it was quite good. In fact it made me want to check it out. While not loud and full of people, I thought it was peaceful and had a type of beauty no other place has. Very unique and I like that about the area.

Yeah, I can remember driving out there when I was 16 because my friends and I were just so excited to finally have a car and the area was a day trip outside of San Diego. It was indeed a beautiful wasteland, there were indeed intriguing desert ruins to explore, but there was also the stench of dead fish as the salinity of the water kept going up so that even ocean fish could no longer survive in it. There was the stench of sewer smells because the Mexican desert city of Calixo dumped its raw sewage into a wash and even though the surface flow quickly disappeared into the sand the subsurface flow of sewage made it into the Salton depression. There was massive chemical run off from the near by farms which all used imported water from the Colorado river (which caused even more environmental havoc when combined with the Mexican sewer and the ever increasing salt content of the water).

Yes, the lake was accidentally created by man when a levee broke sometime before WW1, the water filled the Salton depression forming the Salton Sea, it was a natural rift valley which was filled with salts because it had flooded numerous times in the geologic past, but for a brief time it was considered paradise. It hadn't gotten too polluted, the salt content wasn't that high, and it caused the desert to bloom. Hollywood stars, foreign royalty, sports stars, and god knows who else went out there because the weather was great half of the year, the water was great, it could be winter but it would be sunny and 80 degrees with water temps in the 70's since the lake was shallow. Boat races, car races, hollywood stars... It was a regular part of the popporazzi circuit.

That all changed as nature slowly had its way and man's misdeeds slowly turned it into a toxic soup. Salt levels, originally so low fresh water fish thrived, went ever higher until even ocean fish couldn't survive in the hyper saline water. The people who remained turned it into their dumping ground for untreated sewage, toxic waste, toxic pesticide run off, etc... That famous glitzy place of the movie stars turned into a ghost-town with abandoned ruins with only the desperate and the destitute left living there. You'll still see 80 year old widows living there in double wides but the glory days are far gone and many big hotels and marinas which were thriving in the 1950's and 1960's are now abandoned. Just block after block of urban ruins as owners figured out no one would ever buy them and it wasn't worth paying the property taxes on the place. It is a beautiful wasteland.

[pch1013]

How could they overlook Colma (City of Dead People)?

[Dane_in_LA]

And they consider Irvine exciting... I mean, really - Irvine?

[bigdumbgod]

Was this list made by ADHD fratboys?

[janellen]

Trona
Arvin
Lamont
Terra Bella
Strathmore
Porterville
Taft
Buttonwillow
Pixley
Ducor
Mojave
Avenal