So, have you heard of Slab City? No, well, neither had Gary nor I until we started traveling around in our motor home. It began back during WWII when the government needed some land for Marine anti-aircraft gunners preparing to go to war. Here the would-be gunners lived and practiced on large concrete slabs and bunkers at what was then called Camp Dunlap. When the war ended and the base closed in 1946, the marines moved on and others moved in and the name Slab City was born. Today it is home to hundreds of people who live here year round and many others who snowbird here in the winter. Of course there is no electricity, no running water, no sewers but we passed the Internet Cafe, visited a ‘National Treasure’ called Salvation Mountain and hear that if you want to put solar panels on your RV, you can find no better man to do it than Solar Mike of Sun Works, right in Slab City.
Here’s the community bulletin board where anyone can put announcements. I also understand that there is a library.
It’s a beautiful sunny day but the temps are in the 50’s so a road trip to Slab City about 65 minutes south sounds like the perfect thing to do. We wanted to see Slab City and especially Salvation Mountain right outside of the town of Niland. As we drove in over a paved but rough and pot-holed road we spotted Salvation Mountain ahead of us but in front of the Mountain was a hitchhiker named Bren who wanted a ride to the Internet Cafe. She and some friends were living in tarps down here for a week. She told us that she had done her laundry today - in the creek behind their tent - but now was heading to the cafe. We wove around the slabs, down Tank Road and, sure enough, there was the Internet Cafe, just like she told us.
Intrigued, we then wandered around some more, down this road and that, all dirt roads but there were many people living here permanently. Obviously all the slabs themselves were occupied since they were the choice spots, being off the ground. We also found a section where there were many transient campers - those snowbirds who were here for a day, a week, a month or for the whole winter.
Above is a home on a slab. We found this decorated truck out side this elaborately landscaped home. There were other artistic trucks but this one certainly caught our eye.
Obviously, Slab City is inhabited by all sorts of interesting characters, all living fairly cheaply off the grid and on their own.
However, one of our goals was to see Salvation Mountain, about which we had heard a lot and, since the creator and artist no longer lives here, we wanted to see it before it deteriorated. It is the creation of Leonard Knight who moved to the Slabs in the 1980’s with a vision of creating something which would illustrate his belief that God loves everyone. He took a 3-story tall mound of dirt and sand and sculpted it, designed it, painted it and illustrated it with Bible sayings and scripture and other religious thoughts of his. He sculpted it with adobe and hundreds of thousands of gallons of paint, mostly donated. Some of this paint is the same yellow as the yellow stripe running down highways. Does he have some CalTrans admirers? The Mountain itself is about 3 stories high and as wide as a football field.
Here is a section of his mountain featuring a flower garden and a waterfall off to the right. The colors throughout the Mountain are amazing - not a dark color or a dark thought anywhere to be found.
But he had not just CalTran admirers: Huell Howser interviewed him and featured him on one of his California Gold TV program. In 2002 CA Senator Barbara Boxer got Salvation Mountain approved as a National Treasure. PBS and the BBC have both made documentaries about Knight and his work. Even film director/actor Sean Penn featured Knight in his 2007 film “Into the Wild.”
And today, not only did we visit but we saw at least 20 others visiting and admiring while we were there. But, here is the problem. Mr. Knight has been placed in a local care facility as he has a bit of dementia and his art work is being tended by volunteers. But the threats to its longevity are many: weather and visitors being the largest threats. Vandals are another. Since his creation is only adobe covered with paint, as weather wears away the paint, so will go the adobe. As people climb all over his creation, they will wear it away. And, everyone who visited that we saw, climbed on the Mountain, except, of course, Gary and I.
Salvation Mountain itself needs some salvation now.
An amazing creation and we thought it well worth the trip. But, our second goal of the day is to hike again on the Ladders Trail in Painted Canyon.
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