Just under a decade ago, Angie Harrell Bragg was working as a trauma nurse in California. Tired of the relentless “grind” of her day job, she decided to roll the dice and move to Slab City.
Tucked away in the southeastern corner of California's Sonoran Desert, merely 45 miles from the Mexican border, lies what residents call "the last free place in America".
Slab City is a unique lawless terrain teeming with an eclectic mix of individuals, including those struggling with addiction, free-spirited eccentrics, war veterans, and hippies. In the words of 'Wizard', the self-appointed greeter of Slab City: "Everyone is 100% certifiably insane. And I mean that from a clinical perspective."
Many of the structures resemble haphazard junk sculptures, cobbled together from old tyres and resembling post-apocalyptic vehicles adorned with mannequin limbs, alongside doll houses that bizarrely propagate conspiracy theories about Stalin's ties to dolphins.
Amidst these unconventional edifices, the inhabitants live without any notion of private land ownership, typically engaging in an "informal economy".
Like any other city, Slab has different areas and neighbourhoods. Angie’s RV is parked up by a stretch of water, where she lives harmoniously alongside the rest of her “camp” – a couple of other Slab residents and her dogs.
For the former nurse, this place represents “freedom," saying her life changed for the better after trading gruelling six-seven-day working weeks for the tranquillity of the desert.
“It’s a really interesting place,” she told the Daily Star. “You have the crowd you’d expect in a place like this – the drugtakers and homeless people – but then you also have retired professionals and you’ve got people who were disillusioned by daily life in the US and have just checked out.
“I did 10 years of emergency nursing. I worked in Stanford for four of those years. This’ll be my sixth season here. In May it’ll be my seventh year.”
For Angie, who documents her new-found life on her YouTube channel Mysocalledslablife, Slab City “is like Jekyll and Hyde”.
She added: “In the winter it’s beautiful and there’s lots of tourism and it’s pleasant to be here. Sunshine and rainbows. In April we’ll flip over into our summer season – then we go into survival mode.”
Namely, survival from the unrelenting sun. “It’s 48 degrees Celsius sustained for a couple of months and it’s difficult to live. You go from pleasure camping into just trying to stay alive.”
In the summer months, Slab City’s population thins from “1000’s of citizens” to merely 100s. A mass exodus back towards the city takes place, with folks keen to dodge both the sun and “creatures from hell” (insects) that come out of the ground.
Angie has lived in Slab City for five years all-year-round, with only one season ducking back into ‘normality’. “I skipped one summer. It’s 48 degrees celsius sustained for a couple of months and it’s difficult to live. You go from pleasure camping into survival mode.”
Angie explained the necessity of getting her “solar system” up and running before the merciless heat sets in. With everything running off solar panels, having a decent working system is crucial in order to live through the bleak mid-summer.
I ask what she’s planning to do today, and her response is to “work on my solar system”. Other days, she says “I just do what I want, mostly it’s art – sometimes I play the flute.”
Every year the former nurse gambles her safety from the heat with the further existence of “everything I’ve built here in Slab City”. Leaving, she says, is a risky move.
“It’s hard to keep it safe while you’re gone. People can potentially come and steal things. I’m tired of the survival part. If I move, I gamble everything I’ve built.”
And what a life she appears to have constructed. If you can survive the summer, then the winter months stretch out like an uninterrupted dream where you can basically do whatever you want. Angie’s family even come and visit sometimes, with her daughter and mother recently completing stints at Slab City alongside her – each getting a taste of what life might be like.
Angie urges other people to do what she’s done. “If everyone checked out, the system would change.”
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