In October, Cracked sent four of its most expendable best reporters out to spend a weekend at Slab City. We came expecting Mad Max crossed with The Road . We wound up finding a life that was -- in many ways -- much more pleasant than the ones we'd left behind in Los Angeles. Here are the surprising facts we learned about life in a post-apocalyptic wasteland:

Once upon a time, there was a military base named Camp Dunlap in the depths of California's confusingly named Colorado Desert. It shut down in the late 1950s and, within a decade, a trickle of people started moving in. It acquired the name " Slab City ," and for 50 years, it has existed without laws, running water, or trash pickup. There are no police in Slab City and no electrical grid either. In short, it's as close to life in a post-apocalyptic wasteland as you'll find in this world.

6 Don't Go Expecting Reavers and Bandits

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When we first started out for Slab City, we expected to find a bunch of crazy aspiring cannibals, alien-worshipping cultists, and people who park their shopping carts across both sides of the aisle in supermarkets. In short: the dregs of society.

But sadly, we found only nice, normal folks. The first place we stopped was a singles club called LOW ("Loners on Wheels"). We accidentally broke into their library, thinking it was for public use, even though the words "Members Only" were written quite clearly on the inside of the door. We tried to pass our illiteracy off as simple rebelliousness, but nobody was buying it.

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If only there was a building out there, filled with books, that could help us read better.

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Still, rather than greeting us with a hail of buckshot, their emissary politely pointed out that we were technically breaking and entering. We then had a nice, long conversation about Slab City, and were informed we'd be welcome to camp there if we paid the $55 entry fee, had RVs, and (this was heavily hinted) didn't mind the sounds of old people having sex at night.

We drove around for a bit and stopped to get directions from a shirtless man driving a golf cart, and were eventually guided to East Jesus. The name is either an obscure idiom for way out in the middle of nowhere, or it refers to the fact that they're located due east from a huge mountain covered in Jesus paraphernalia.

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When the Second Coming happens, this is probably the place you want to be.

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East Jesus ("Not a religion, do not worship" is their slogan) functions as the proof-of-concept for a functional post-apocalyptic society. There was ample electricity from the solar panels, a full kitchen, fans, beds and permanent buildings, all made out of trash and all surrounded with desert art (also made out of trash). There were a few cars parked out front (covered in trash) and of course, plenty of trash.

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Oscar the Grouch/part-time mechanic

Turns out there's a reason for that beyond "I was high and the trash can was really far away." The people in Slab City learned quickly that ...