Abandoned Desert Fish Farm and Empty Tiny-House Town

All of the driest desert in North America is about the last place you'd expect to find a fish farm, right? Oh, wait, what's that noise? Could that be the sound of epic fail? That's right, a fish farm in the middle of the desert. Let's have a look around. The Mojave Desert, and deserts in general, have always attracted dreamers and schemers. Lured by cheap land and possibilities, they set up business ventures out here that would normally seem unreasonable or unfeasible. Some would say outrageous, especially considering this environment. This looks like it was once some kind of citrus grove. Possibly lemons, maybe oranges. But as you can see, all the trees are dead. This grove looks like it was abandoned a long time ago. You can still see the drip feed lines. It looks like these were once agricultural fields. The desert is slowly reclaiming them, but it's going to take a long time. While desert civilizations have flourished for a time, sometimes a long time, if history is any indication, desert civilizations will eventually die. You might want to take a note of that, Phoenix in Las Vegas. If your aqueducts stop bringing precious water, you're done. So there's a look at what appears to be the main house and office, complete with dead palm trees. We'll start out here at what looks to be the main office. Nice glass right there. And more glass. And this was a bathroom, maybe, huh? Okay. Well, let's have a look in here. And this... What is this, like... insulation stuff they spread on the walls? Huh. Alright, doesn't look like a real good living space. But, yeah, maybe these were offices? I think. Now this looks more office-like. Might look like some offices you may have worked in with upturned desks and junk around the floor like that. And maybe even a few holes in the wall from angry employees. Nothing in this room. Just some carpet padding and some broken glass. What's back here? Tiled floors. Pretty nice touch. What's re... what's, uh... remaining of the tile on the wall? More holes in the wall. And... not much back here. Oh, that's a brightly colored room over there. Well, wait a minute, let's go this way first, have a look. Okay, so... this is a garage? Uh, not sure. I don't know what that was. Maybe another bathroom, who knows. Let's take a look in this room. With the bright red walls. And the cars. Yes, the cars are moving. Cars. Well, life is a highway. Nope, looks like this was the bathroom. Yep. Nice tile work there. More cars on there. And these are interesting, they, uh... slide out shelves? Uh-huh. Hm. Okay. Let me just punch in the code here. Uh, make sure nobody breaks in while we're away on this alarm. Behind the main house is this little house and a water tank with some dead palm trees. Darling, whoever did the landscaping here, it's absolutely fabulous. Absolutely marvelous, darling, I tell you. Would I lie to you? Never, baby. A little touch of paint and maybe 200 million gallons of water, this place is gonna spring right back. The best in trailer living can be yours. Comes complete with 1970s satellite dish. Quite an assortment in this pile. We've got some couch, chairs, sink. And over here we've got... an office desk. Hey, ladies. This applies to guys, doesn't it? Do you think this place has gone bananas? Let's have a look inside this place. Bunch of plastic pallets. Chair. Another toilet. There's toilets all over this place. Mattress. Up and at the end there. So is that the little doggy feeding and watering station? Couple more little places there. Let's go in the one to the right. Got some magazines on the floor there. Fire extinguisher sign. Alan Reams, attorney at law. Hey, Alan, if you're the one who is living out here, looks like you got reamed. Let's see if we can find a date on this magazine. October of 2010? Let's see if we can find a date on this one. August, 2010. I found the fork in the road. Looks like a garage. Yep, had to be. Oil filter, STP. Assorted odds and ends. STP and KFC. Got a shed over there. A tiny house there. And to the left of it, an old beat up camper. I swear I only used it for a couple months. Good old camper top. You have found a place to have your siesta forevermore. But I am returning the camper in the condition that I found it. I did a little road trip with Chivvy Chase and Steve Martin and we picked up a hitchhiker named John Candy. I know, the younger people won't get that one unless they're movie buffs. Let's go past this old ladder and into the shed. Yeah, looks like it might actually have been a dining hall. This over here, like a big cook area with that big vent fan area there. Now it's just a place where a bird's nest or a rat's nest. Tiny house number six. Just plastic pallets and wire and whatnot in there. And an old cooler down there. Yep, couple of drink coolers. Let's go have a peek inside this place. Another cooler. Lots of magazines. Including, appropriately, Aquaculture magazine from 1995. Numerous other magazines in here. Insulation, paperwork, and it comes complete with bird's nest. Right over your doorway. And right behind that place are our fish ponds. A lot of fish ponds. Looks to be 27. Looks like the depth of the water was about three and a half feet. I don't know what they were farming. Maybe tilapia? I imagine they were growing a whole lot of fish in this place. There's a couple of very large earthen ponds here. There's the other one. While they were ponds, just add water. And a third pond over here. We're going to take our boats upon the pond and throw out our nets and hope to catch some fish. We've stepped on up into the double-wide trailer here. Have a look around. Beans in the drawer. As my grandma might say, this place wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. Kitchen over here. Still got some coffee on here for you. You bet. That's right, honey. A few things in the cupboards. Vanilla, coffee filters, jam jars, whatever. But there's something over here. Fat-free milk. Carnation. And a can of beans up here. Yeah, that's a can of beans it has. Green beans that have not been opened. So if you're hungry, come on down. Anything in here? Not really. Going into the bathroom, we have Spongebob. I love Krabby Patties. Where's Squidward? And your feminine hygiene products. And a little bathtub. That really isn't much bigger than a cooler. A large cooler. Coming into the bedroom. We got a magazine there. What do we have on that? June 2001. Books left behind. That was just a cover. Carlos Castaneda. More books over there. And a shoe. A sock. And a slipper. Looking into the bathroom. I seriously have to have a word with the cleaning lady. She's got to do better than this. Another little hut. This one's just kind of standing out here by itself. And just beyond it is the village of Tiny Houses. It's a tiny house city. I'm guessing that this was probably housing for the agricultural workers here. I can't imagine the fish farm would need that many employees. Probably only need five or six. Since there's probably about 70 of these little huts or houses, we're not going to poke our head in every one. That would take forever. But we'll have a look in a couple. Let's have a look in 2A. Pretty barren. Barely nothing in here at all. Looks like they did have electricity and running water. Old bins down there. Let's have a look in these three. They're a little bit away from the other one. There's a dishwasher. Let's see what's behind door number one. Toilet tank and bowl. Liquid amino acid solutions. Soil application and what not. Chelated zinc solution. Let's see what's behind door number two. Irrigation tubing. Some kind of filters there. Couple of bins. Broken glass. Stepping on it. Let's see what's behind door number three. You win all this. Yes. Rusty paint cans. Oh, let's not forget. Awesome tubing. Leftover stucco bags. Returning to the main section. I looked through a lot of these, but most of them are completely empty. On occasion you do get one that has a bunch of junk in it. Like an old phone. Bunch of boxes. And this one still got some paint on the plywood. Yeah, most of them are totally empty. Here's a clue. Maybe they grew watermelon here. Not far from the main cluster of housing are the bathrooms. If that housing was filled up with workers I can imagine this would have been a very busy place in the morning. Hey! Hey man, let me in. I gotta go. Only got three toilets in this place. I see the pack rats are availing themselves nicely to the toilets. We got a pack rat behind this door right here. He just scurried off somewhere. I saw him and I heard him. He's in that little nest. He must be a male pack rat because he's nesting in the men's room. And this one only has two toilets. And a urinal. As usual, the women's side looks much spiffier than the men's side. There's a big old warehouse just beyond the housing. I would imagine this is where they trucked the fruits and vegetables out of. This little place is just back of the warehouse. Let's see what's in here. A couple chairs. An old stove. Another chair. Hey, this place has everything. Even the kitchen sink. Fine woodwork on those cabinets. Mighty fine indeed. Let's have a look in the warehouse. Looks like these were the offices. It's awfully quiet in there, Harold. Harold? Get to work! I said get to work! Where the hell did you go this time, Harold? Dammit! Always sneaking out. What, you think I'm paying you to smash glass and throw it on the floor, Harold? Somebody lost their glasses. Ain't no smoking at work. That's a no-no. Look at the color on that wall. That's pretty bright. The guys at the warehouse thought they'd get a big enough cooler to hold the beers they're going to have in a day. And by the way, this also doubles as a bathtub. This place died long ago. And the buzzards are still circling. I think you can accurately say that this agricultural area and fish farm went belly up. I hope you enjoyed exploring this abandoned fish farm in the desert with me. You keep on subscribing, and I'll keep taking you to interesting and remote places like this. Until next time, this is Rock Hopper. I'll see you again.