However, I didn’t anticipate [...]]]> We had such as awesome time visiting and exploring Slab City – the remains of the abandoned Marine barracks of Camp Dunlap just outside Niland, California along the Salton Sea in the desert of southeast California. And I had big intentions of writing prolifically about it to share with you.

However, I didn’t anticipate just how little ‘free time’ we’d be getting working at amazon.com’s distribution center in Kansas this month.  We’ve now completed our first full week (working 11 hour days – 5 days a week), and it’s exhausting. It’s not mentally challenging by any means, but it sure is physically challenging.  And it’s quite an experience and peak into this side of consumer culture and America. We’re all about experiences and learning about things we’re not normally exposed to – so it’s definitely worthwhile from that perspective.  Hopefully when we’re done with our time here in a few weeks we’ll have the energy to post more indepth about what we’ve learned (without violating the terms of our NDA we signed about the specific processes.)

So back to wonderful antithesis of consumerism – Slab City and East Jesus. When we met up with Route 66 Roadtripping Sandi Wheaton in what seems like so long ago now, she was thrilled to be able to play tour guide for us around the Salton Sea – an area of the country we had not yet explored, and were quite curious about.

We posted previously about our afternoon at Salvation Mountain.

However, we also explored The Slabs, and were introduced to her awesomely cool friend Container Charlie who has created an experimental artistic habitat constructed out of found materials and made into art – he calls it ‘East Jesus’. It came as no surprise to us that he’s a fellow burner (Burning Man participant) and vagabond. We instantly clicked, and new friend found.

Sandi just saved us a ton of writing by posting her write up of our visit to East Jesus. So instead of trying to muster the creative energy to post about it ourselves, I’m going to refer you to her awesome post – East Jesus, Pop 1, Elev 75.

Before starting at amazon, I also managed to complete a video piece about The Slabs in general (not focused on East Jesus) to give you an overview of our time there.

In case you don’t see the video above if you’re on RSS – here’s a direct link to the video.

So, I wouldn’t be expecting much in the way of posting for a few weeks from us as we complete our time at amazon – we hope you enjoy your vacation from our stories, and we look forward to continuing sharing our adventures after the first of the year with you.

As a gentle reminder – aside from working there as temps this season at amazon, we’re also affiliates.  If you’re going to be shopping at amazon anyway, if you start off your shopping session using this link – we’ll get a small cut of your purchases.  Every little bit helps to pad the meager hourly wage they’re paying us to package your stuff.

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Most never act on this.

But a rare few are overcome with purpose, and devote their lives to the call.

Artist Leonard Knight heard such a call (“to my knowledge, it was on a Wednesday, about ten-thirty in the morning [...]]]> Some people have a calling, a message they must deliver to the world.

Most never act on this.

But a rare few are overcome with purpose, and devote their lives to the call.

Artist Leonard Knight heard such a call (“to my knowledge, it was on a Wednesday, about ten-thirty in the morning in 1967″), and has dedicated his life to nothing else since.

And for the past 25 years, Leonard has been toiling tirelessly in the California desert – building a monument to his message – that “God is Love”.

I have met tenacity and it’s name is Leonard Knight.

When the simple message of ‘God is Love’ hit Leondard in 1967, he was inspired to stitch together a massive colorful hot air balloon to fly the message to the people. But after 14 years of work, he was never able to get his balloon inflated without tearing. And eventually his patchwork of fabric had become a lost cause, beginning to rot.

When he gave up on the balloon project in 1984 Leonard was passing through Slab City in the southeastern desert of California – a fascinating no man’s land that we will feature in a story all its own. Before leaving, Leonard decided to stay one more week to make a “small statement” – a monument to his message built into a local hillside.

Decades later his “small statement” has grown into a 150 foot wide by 50 foot high mountain built out of adobe clay and buckets of paint, and he’s still going at it.

This kaleidoscope of colorful hills, limbs, arches, flowers and scripture became known as Salvation Mountain, and it marks the entrance to Slab City today.

When the county tried to tear down Leonard’s creation in 1994 locals rallied to his defense, collecting hundreds of signatures to stop the monument from being torn down.

Today no one even thinks of tearing down Salvation Mountain, and it has become a treasured landmark and tourist attraction that has become famous around the world. The Folk Art Society of America has declared Salvation Mountain a national folk art shrine, and in 2002 the US congress officially recognized Salvation Mountain as a National Treasure.

And all the while, Leonard has continued to work on it.

Salvation Mountain entered further into the pop culture mainstream when Leonard and the mountain were featured in Sean Penn’s 2007 Oscar-nominated movie Into the Wild (read our movie review), a dramatization of the true story of Chris McCandless, who spent time in Slab City on his nomadic journey towards his tragic death in Alaska.

We visited Slab City and Salvation Mountain recently with two photographer friends – Sean “Epic” Mahoney (get your website up already, dude!) and Route 66 Road Nomad Sandi Wheaton.

When we arrived, we were immediately greeted by Leonard Knight and taken on a personal tour of his amazing monument. We even got to witness adobe being made for further construction. (And we couldn’t help but giggle when he asked us Photoshop proficient photographers if we “knew anything about adobe?”…)

View our guided video tour of Salvation Mountain with Leonard Knight.

While none in our group are particularly religious, we were all overcome by Leonard’s energy and enthusiasm and sheer joy at being alive and sharing his message. And the mountain itself beautifully embodies his joy and love. Taking a tour with Leonard (free, btw), and then climbing the yellow brick road path to the top is an experience not to be missed.

Leonard started off alone in the desert, and through faith and tenacity his message has now touched millions.

Inspiring indeed.

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