In our search for places to boondock on this trip eastward, we encountered Slab City. Boondocking is the art of finding a strategic free camping site where your presence will not bother the neighbors or attract attention. This is not always an easy task when few places are both legal and free to camp, or when you drive a big red bus. Slab City is near the Salton Sea in the California desert, hidden behind a rundown town on an old military base where only concrete slabs from the buildings remain. The entrance, an old checkpoint booth, boldly states “slab city, the last free place”.
Past the booth is the largest piece of folk art we have ever seen, Salvation Mountain. It’s a shrine to Jesus Christ and to Love. “Jesus I’m a sinner please come upon my soul and into my heart” is painted on the side of a handcrafted adobe hillside, next to a scene that depicts among other things a waterfall and a yellow brick road which leads to an enormous cross at the top of the hill. This was all crafted by a now 77 year old man, Leonard Knight. Leonard broke down in 1984 and planned to spend only two weeks building the shrine. Twenty five years later he is still going strong and giving tours to over 100 visitors daily. He showed us the adobe cave he built to live in and the adobe balloon he still works on. The balloon interior towers above at over two stories. Old automotive glass windows allow the light to penetrate into the interior, illuminating artificial trees. The trees are made from old tires filled with sticks and covered with painted adobe, just like the rest of the interior. “Currently the bill is in the Senate to have this dedicated as a national treasure”, he gleams with pride. Not in a cocky way, more out of contentment for what he has accomplished out of love for humankind and Jesus.
Two young men were standing around offering help to the elderly gentleman as he spryly scooted around. We started talking and they commented on our bus, which is always open for tours. “You gave us a tour, now it’s our turn”, Justin said with glee. As it turns out these two clean cut young men were best friends from Boston, recent graduates who couldn’t find any work in these hard times. They packed what they needed and drove out west to the Slabs, having heard about it from the movie “Into the Wild”. They had spent the past several months helping the old man at times and enjoying free life within the community. They gave us a few pointers and a general idea of what things were like: most of the slabs were accounted for, but there was plenty of space to stay on, and no time limit. The talent shows on Saturday were the highlight, but we would be long gone somewhere in Arizona. “Sometimes valley girls from LA come out here to get the whole experience, like from the movie. They only last five minutes and then go home”. They told us about the natural hot spring, so we got our towels and suits and walked down the road. Military vehicles whizzed past us blowing sand in our faces. Apparently the loud booms we had been hearing were coming from a bomb test site out in the desert. At the hot spring we encountered other bathers, older men in their fifties washing themselves with shampoo. It was gross to imagine swimming in used shampoo, but one guy told us the spring pumped 7,000 gallons an hour, so we decided to go in. All three men had been living at the Slabs for several months out of the radar of the federal government, or so they thought. They seemed like normal folks, just tired of the same day to day life.
On our way back to the bus we discussed the day and decided to see Slab City for ourselves. After crossing the hill we could see a sea of RV’s ranging from old broken-down school buses to hundred thousand dollar motor homes, amidst scattered shrubs and the rare tree for shade. We pulled over at what looked like an information booth, but we found it was the 16th Annual Solar Potluck-- just our luck since we had not eaten since early in the day. We cautiously approached the crowd of 40 people ranging in size, shape and age, and an organizer invited us to eat. It was one of the more eclectic groups we have ever seen. The most surprising of all was that everyone looked clean. The hot spring and outdoor shower must help. After some consideration we decided that it didn’t make sense to just spend one night at the Slabs; it was more a place to spend several days and get to know people and their stories, but we didn’t have the time.
We drove through the edge of the abandoned town north toward the Salton Sea and Joshua Tree National Park. We started ascending a beautiful canyon and noticed people parked off to the side, and it was BLM land. We decided to stop there for the night and hike to the top of one of the hills while we still had an hour of light. Our spot was a good ways from the road and had its own fire pit. We sat around a fire that night for the first time on our trip, enjoying the beautiful glow and smell of burning wood.
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