The Salton Sea is definitely one of the strangest places I've ever been. I was there a few months ago and I can still smell the wretched stench of thousands of rotting fish carcases littered along the coast. Known as an accidental sea, the Salton Sea was created when massive flooding of the Colorado River in 1905 crashed the canal gates leading into the developing Imperial Valley. For the next 18 months the entire volume of the Colorado River rushed downward into the Salton Trough. By the time engineers were finally able to stop the breaching water in 1907, the Salton Sea had been born at 45 miles long and 20 miles wide – equaling about 130 miles of shoreline.

In the 1920s they developed the area into a successful tourist destination which lasted until the late 1950s. By then people had started abandoning the area and the decay that we see now set in. The Salton Sea is California's largest lake. Like Death Valley, it is below sea level. The salinity of the water is out of control, hence all of the rotting fish on the shores.

Anyways, if you're into post-apocalyptic hell-holes, check this place out.