Southern California's deserts are definitely weird places. Forget about Nevada's Burning Man festival, because more remote Mojave Desert outposts have it beat when it comes to artistic, way-out happenings. Uncover the most offbeat, eccentric and just plain strange spots in Southern California on our psychedelic road trip.

With the quixotic windmills of the San Gregorio Pass in your rearview mirror, it's time to leave civilization behind. Snaking along Highway 111 out of the Coachella Valley, what looks like a mirage sparkles on the horizon. In the middle of the Colorado Desert is an artificial lake, the Salton Sea. Created in 1905 when flooding on the Colorado River caused Imperial Valley irrigation canals to overflow, it's now California's largest lake. On the empty beaches of Salton Sea State Recreation Area, pitch a tent or go swimming (though salt might sting your eyes). A more popular activity is birding, with more than 400 migratory and native species spotted at the national wildlife refuge on the lake's south side.

Niland, with its boarded-up businesses and dusty thoroughfares, is a typically hardscrabble lakeshore community. It takes a special kind of freak to live way out here, and we say that with love. Heading east on Main Street, drive out to Salvation Mountain, where the motto is "God Never Fails." Made of concrete and adobe covered in a rainbow patchwork of acrylic paint, it's the vision of folk artist Leonard Knight, who smilingly waves visitors over from the roadside. Farther east along Beal Road is Slab City, an abandoned World War II-era Marine barracks where you'll find thousands of snowbird RVers camped during the winter, and a few hard-core residents even in summer. This is the true Wild West, where hippies, vets, conspiracy theorists and social outsiders congregate.

Drive narrow Box Canyon Road to I-10 east. At Chiriaco Summit, pull off at the General Patton Memorial Museum, standing at the entrance to the World War II-era Desert Training Center. Here, more than 1 million troops trained for battle in harsh conditions overseas. Besides exhibits about the ruthless, soldier-slapping general himself, there's a gigantic 3-D relief map of Southern California.

Take the scenic route north through Joshua Tree National Park, rising from the Colorado (Sonoran) Desert into the Mojave. Exit the park near the artsy, beatnik town of Joshua Tree, then follow Highway 62 west to Yucca Valley, turning right on Pioneertown Road. Built in 1946 by Hollywood Western producers, Pioneertown's Main Street is lined with wooden boardwalks and faux frontier-style buildings. Drop by Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, a real live honky-tonk dishing up saucy roadhouse barbecue plates and live bands. After the show, stumble back to the Pioneertown Lodge and Stables, with rustic cabins where Western movie stars such as Gene Autry once slept.

Built by George Van Tassel, supposedly using telepathic help from extraterrestrial beings, the Integratron is said to sit on a "powerful geomagnetic vortex" near the town of Landers, just east of Highway 247. Thousands of people, from rock stars to meditative yogis, have visited this white dome-shaped building for a healing "sonic bath," courtesy of singing crystal bowls.

At Death Valley Junction, a 200-plus-mile drive north via Barstow and I-15, the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel is a Mexican colonial-style courtyard building built in the 1920s. It was revived by New York dancer Marta Becket after her car broke down nearby in 1967. She has painted a trompe l'oeil audience for herself on the walls of the opera house, where she continues to give heartbreakingly bizarre dance and mime performances, even though she's more than 80 years old.

Death Valley National Park is full of natural oddities. But none are as disturbing as the larger-than-life statues of the Goldwell Open Air Museum, created in 1984 by Belgian artist Albert Szukalski. The sculpture garden is on the Nevada side of the border just outside the ghost town of Rhyolite, a short drive east of the national park.