road trip: slab city

We stopped a few miles south of Bombay Beach, in Niland, a town just large enough to merit a post office and a general store that's open most days of the week. Also, it's the gateway to Slab City, named after the concrete foundations left over from when the area was a military training facility in World War II.

Salvation Mountain Sign Slab City

Slab City is a thriving community of temporary and permanent residents: retirees in RVs, hippies in buses, anti-government militia members in makeshift tents, and just about anybody else who can find a spot to squat and call their own. There are no utilities -- no water, no sewer, no trash, no electricity, no water -- but there's a dirt 18-hole golf course, a singles club, a fishing spot and even a pet cemetery. Nearly abandoned during the summer when temperatures hover around 115 degrees, in winter it's a haven for snowbirds from places like Wisconsin and Minnesota and Alberta. The land is still owned by the government, but nobody seems to mind the thousands of squatters living there year-round. The squatters don't seem to mind the government ignoring them, either.

Leonard Knight, in front of his mountain. Slab City

It was a busy week in Slab City when we arrived -- there were garage sale signs up all over, and a sign pointing off into the brush saying "hitchhikers meeting this way". While we were parking, a stream of RVs and buses drove back and forth down the road to the Slabs, and a few residents idled on the side of the road to chat. As M pointed out, it's like a permanent Burning Man, minus the portapotties. They even have their own website. Several, actually. We didn't end up going to the garage sale. M chickened out on me.

Really, we weren't in Niland to see Slab City anyway. We were there to see Leonard Knight. I wanted M to meet him, and to see the mountain he is building in the desert next to the Salton Sea.

Salvation Mountain & Leonard's Car

To find Salvation Mountain, you turn left off the highway at Niland, and drive about two miles east down the main road, toward Slab City. You'll see Salvation Mountain before you see the sign. GOD IS LOVE rises up like a mirage out of the ubiquitous brown dirt just as you cross the railroad tracks. As long as the weather is good, and unless he's gone to town for food or supplies, you'll see Leonard Knight there, building his tribute to God out of mud, hay bales, abandoned cars, old tires and countless donated gallons of house paint. Leonard, who is well into his seventies, has been doing this for 25 years, since he crashed his hot air balloon next to the Salton Sea and decided to stay. If you walk over and say hello, he'll offer to give you a tour, and that is what we did.

Leonard shows us his museum.

There are two things you should know about Leonard. First, he is a profoundly kind and gentle man and a Christian of the best kind, meaning he isn't going to tell you you're going to hell and preach the gospel to you as soon as you so much as glance in his direction. He's going look at you with his piercing blue eyes and tell you that God loves you and that he is building his mountain because he let Jesus into his heart, and he will smile and take you to the painted truck he lives in and show you his newspaper clippings and give you as many postcards as you want without so much as asking for a donation. Second, he only tells you about God if you talk about God, and he hates it when Christians of the other variety try to talk him into their way of thinking. If all religious people could be a little more like Leonard Knight and a little less like Jerry Falwell, the world would be a different place, indeed.

View from the top of Salvation Mountain

The main part of Salvation Mountain, and indeed everything else in the immediate vicinity including the cars and the ground and Leonard's truck, is covered with painted passages from the Bible. He's painted trees and waterfalls and a yellow painted stairway to the top of the mountain, where there is always somebody standing under the cross taking a photo of somebody else. All day long, artists and pilgrims and tourists and journalists come from all over the world to see Leonard and his mountain. And all day he graciously shows them around, endlessly enthusiastic about his construction efforts, which have expanded to several rooms with windows and a grotto filled with religious images. He has volunteers to help him now -- there was a man mixing mud with straw to make adobe for a new wall when we were there. Leonard says his mountain has been on TV all around the world, and artists have been coming to help him, and people have donated hay bales and gallons and gallons and gallons of paint in every possible color.

Inside the Museum

Leonard walks back to his camper.

So, if ever you might consider a visit to the Salton Sea, Leonard says for me to tell you, "Get down here! And bring paint." Posted by kia at January 25, 2004 12:25 AM