After a month on the road and a week of heavy eating in San Francisco, we were a bit tired when we got to Southern California. Hot temperatures (for December) didn't help either.

We tried to visit LA but the smog was so thick that we decided to skip it. Palm Springs, a small town farther inland, was a nice place where I recharged batteries before the second half of our trip.

One of those days, I drove to the Salton Sea. It was the most surreal place of the whole trip and an experience that will not be easy to forget.

I found incredible post-apocalyptic, decaying landscapes, but the mud and the putrid, fetid smell I found once I got out of the car weren't things I was hoping to find there.

That night's sunset was one for the books. It was quite spectacular and it helped to make me feel like I was in some other planet, in a decaying, abandoned, fallen planet in a Star Wars universe.

Not the best photos of the trip by any means, but what an evening I had there.