Strange deserted places

I hate looking at flickr photos -- they take forever to load and I usually wish people would just fucking edit the set so we see the best handful instead of like three hundred craptacular ones -- but this one totally compelled me: Jonathan Rouse's set of photos from his road trip to the Salton Sea.

This is a place whose name sounds more mysterious and awesome the more you say it -- the sibilance, the romance of the word "sea" instead of "lake," the way it kind of whispers in your mind.

And the place itself -- such a wasteland, with strange remnants of humanity clinging here and there. It's like what I imagine the whole world would look like after a nuclear war -- well, the places that didn't get a direct hit, anyway.

The photos give me this weird crawly feeling, like when I read John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer," which is to my mind the scariest horror story ever written.

Read the original post, put the set on slideshow, and be prepared to go somewhere ... strange.