Part 2: Taking Two Days Off with the 707-horsepower Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk

Day Two
Since we had an ambitious day’s drive planned, we got an early start at the nearby Red Ocotillo’s, which is affiliated with the hotel. Dave had the Huevos Rancheros while I went for the Crab Cake Benedict. Both were excellent and would be more than enough to carry us through to our planned lunch stop. Heading back to the roundabout, we picked up County Road S22 at the three-o’clock position and headed east towards Salton City. This road is also known as the Borrego Salton Sea Road.

Off to our left, just east of town was the aforementioned airport and to our right, approaching CA 86, you’ll see the Anza-Borrego Badlands, a severe sedentary rock formation that reminded me of the Badlands in South Dakota. Because we knew we would be doubling back over CA 86 later in the day, we headed directly north to CA 111 with the Salton Sea to our right, to skirt the northern side of the Salton Sea. Our next stop? The North Shore Beach and Yacht Club, an Albert Frey-designed structure built in 1959 at the then staggering cost of $2,000,000 ($17,000,000, adjusted for inflation) that became California’s largest marina at the time.


It was famous in its day for the yachts that once populated the Salton Sea. (Members of The Beach Boys, Guy Lombardo, Jerry Lewis, and The Marx Brothers were among those who docked their boats there.) The building was restored and is now operated since 2009 by Riverside County as a community center. When renovated the side facing the lake is styled like it was in the 1960s, before the first drought and associated agricultural runoff basically destroyed the Salton Sea’s ecosystem. Later, rising tides in 1981 mostly finished off what the receding shoreline didn’t.

By the 1990s the club and most of the surrounding buildings were abandoned. In 2009 the county spent $30,000,000 to redevelop the region, $3.350,000 of which was spent to redevelop the building into the regional community center for which it now serves. In 2015 the historic structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places. If you’re heading east on Interstate 10 towards Arizona (or going in the other way), it’s well worth the three-hour detour to see the building and the north shore of the Salton Sea.


Heading south on CA 111, our next stop was the Ski Inn, 17 miles south in Niland, California (also known as Bombay Beach). The Ski Inn has the distinction of being the bar with the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere. We arrived in time for lunch but not before attempting to get, unsuccessfully, some drone footage. Inside, on a weekday in the Fall, the bar was packed with locals. We both ordered patty melts with onion rings, which turned out to be a great choice. It should be noted that the Ski Inn has a 4.5 out of 5 rating on Yelp and a 4 out of 5 rating on Trip Advisor, generating comments like this; Ski Inn is on A street because it’s Awesome!! Carol, (the bartender), greeted us as we walked in and met us at a table with menus. After we ordered, the owner Jane came over to check on us. Told us all about these cool spots to check out in the neighborhood._ Good cheap beer and cool ambiance. Dollar bills everywhere for decor. We added ours above the late Anthony Bourdain’s picture. (Respect!!) It was my birthday and Jane played Happy Birthday on the jukebox and had the bar serenaded me. Ha!! Delicious cheesecake, too. Recommend checking out a sunset at the beach and then head here afterward. You won’t be disappointed!”)

Eating my patty melt I mentioned to Dave that now I had not only eaten at the lowest bar in the Western Hemisphere, but 15 years ago I played a round of golf at the lowest golf course in the country at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, five-and-a-half hours away. I’m thinking that the about-to-be-announced Jeep Gladiator pickup might be the ideal vehicle for such a road trip next year. By then I think I’ll have the drone thing figured out.


(We returned a few weeks later in an Alfa Romeo Giulia. But I don’t think that editor Bob Melhoff will stretch for an Alfa Romeo road trip adventure for Mopar Muscle.)

The journey south on CA 111 continued and we looked for signs for the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge (SBNWR)… yes, that Sonny Bono. After his career in pop music and television, Bono relocated to Palm Springs, and after being frustrated by the local bureaucrats when he tied to open a restaurant, entered politics and was elected Mayor.

After his term as Mayor, he served two terms in Congress before his untimely death in 1998 in a skiing accident. It should be noted that Bono was an ardent protector of the Salton Sea and enlisted then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to spearhead preservation efforts, thus leading to the naming of the wildlife refuge in his honor after his passing.


(One more bit of trivia, Sonny Bono remains, to this day, the only member of Congress to also have a Billboard number one hit, 1965’s The Beat Goes On, with then-wife, Cher.)

Exiting the SBNWR, we turned right to head south, following the directions of that little voice coming out of the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk’s uConnect system, to CA 111 north, to follow the western shoreline of the Salton Sea. About a half hour later we reached the intersection of S22 (mentioned previously. But instead of heading north on CA 111, as we had done earlier, we took a right at the light (the ARCO AM/PM was to our left) and drove along South Marina Drive, exploring the western shore of the Salton Sea.

This part of the trip offers a myriad number of photo possibilities, most of them graffiti-painted abandoned building. There once was a marina that served this part of the lake, now it’s mostly abandoned buildings along the lake with some post-1981 residential development along with some trailer parks that remain from the region’s heyday as the “California Rivera.”


We stopped for photography on the beach at several locations – where the marina once stood as well as what remains of the Salton Sea Beach Club.


Here the drone cooperated and without having to walk through the structurally unsound structure (and avoiding the need for a post-trip visit to the doctor for a tetanus_shot) strewn with garbage, tires and God knows what else, we were able to capture some truly stunning video. It wasn’t too hard to imagine, back in its heyday, the area teeming with tourists. Now, it’s a reminder of what once was.

Returning to CA 86, after exploring a few of the abandoned trailer parks, we headed north, to pick up Interstate 10 west. Our final destination for the day was Bill’s Pizza, the location in downtown Palm Springs. We arrive just about at sundown and wanted to get a shot of the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk in front of the restaurant but traffic, lights, and the local constabulary weren’t cooperative when I tried to set up my tripod. So I settled for walking down the street to the Sonny Bono statute that graces a prominent spot in a courtyard on South Palm Canyon Drive that was hosting a farmer’s market.

A personal note. I’m from New Jersey, having grown up with great, traditional mom-and-pop pizzerias on virtually every corner. Such things really don’t exist in Southern California, at least I haven’t found any local to me. Before planning out this trip, and feeling after having lost more than 40 pounds on my Keto diet, I would go off-diet for some pizza. Searching Yelp and Trip Advisor for “Best Pizza in Palm Springs” it looked like Bill’s Pizza on South Indian Plaza would be my best choice. Both websites rated it as number one in Palm Springs. And Dave and I, after a long day starting back in Borrego Springs, weren’t disappointed.


I can safely say, after living in California (AKA the People’s Republic of Kalifornia), that the pizza at Bill’s, is the best I’ve tasted west of the Mississippi. A medium-crust pizza, it’s obvious from the first burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth bite, that this is a premium pizza made from the absolute freshest ingredients, the rival of any in my native New Jersey. Spending $25 for a three-topping pizza is not something I’m typically comfortable with, it was worth every penny. And best of all, there were two pieces left for heating in the toaster the following morning.**If we weren’t so close to home, less than 90 minutes, we would have gotten a couple of rooms at my favorite Mid-Century haunt in Palm Springs, The Orbit In. Restored in the early 2000s (I remember attending their relaunch party back in 2002), it’s a short walk from both Bill’s Pizza and the Sonny Bono statute.

Dave and I arrived back at our homes in Lake Elsinore around 10 PM. It was a long but very rewarding two days. The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk was simply wonderful. While a detour to the Thermal Club, a motorsports and resort complex for the really well-heeled motoring enthusiast (that also hosts the BMW Performance Driving School) might have been possible had more time been available, but alas, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk had to be returned to FCA’s press fleet the following day. No amount of cajoling with my PR contact could extend the loan even one more day. We had to satisfy ourselves with an epic two-day adventure over some of Southern California’s best roads and a visit to the “California Rivera,” a land that time has truly forgot.

If you want to learn more about the Salton Sea, be sure to check out the 2005 documentary, Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, available on YouTube.

For more information on the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk, visit Jeep.com.

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