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Sad Max
06-07-2008, 02:33 AM
Continued from Slab City (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=137482)


http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/CaveArt_01_Sm.jpg

There's more inside the camper. The work of a resident, or just a scenic artist?



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/AlmostThere_Sm.jpg

And not too many miles down the road, the first outlying trace of Slab City - The Last Free Place. It looks like a military guard shack; the walls are about two-foot-thick concrete, and the apertures are shaped like rifle ports. It could stop small-arms fire and grenade fragments.



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/GodNeverFails_Sm.jpg

Before you actually reach Slab City, you find Salvation Mountain.



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/GodMountainPan_Sm.jpg

Salvation Mountain is part natural hill, part piled and stacked hay bales, and part trees, posts, glass windows, sports trophies, colored stones and additional found material, all stuck together with natural adobe made from the earth of the hill, and layer upon layer of brightly-colored paint. The picture does it no justice; you can actually climb to the top on a yellow-painted footpath (the Yellow Brick Road!) for a fine view of the surrounding desert and mountains.



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/Leonard_Sm.jpg

This is Leonard, creator and continuing architect of Salvation Mountain. He's a very pleasant guy, a gracious host, and everything you see there, he put together over a period of twenty-plus years.



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/LeonardTruck_01_Sm.jpg

Leonard decorates vehicles, too. He's got several trucks, a couple boats, and some heavy machinery I couldn't identify, but this one's my favorite...



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/LeonardArch_Sm.jpg

The entrance into what you might call the 'inside' of Salvation Mountain...



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/LeonardPoles_sm.jpg

Although partly open to the sky, the inner part of the mountain is a good ten to fifteen degrees cooler than the desert outside. All that layered hay and adobe makes for very effective insulation...



http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/LeonardGrotto_Sm.jpg

One of the grottoes formed into the walls of the Mountain.

-continued in 'Slab City III' (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=137485)

Jared Meyer
06-07-2008, 04:13 AM
These pictures are awesome! I just saw Into the Wild and I guess I didn't realize Salvation Mountain was a real location (yeah, I don't get out much)...So they even had the real Leonard in the movie! Ha! :)

ugafan
06-07-2008, 10:28 PM
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc24/karljmm/SlabCityRide/AlmostThere_Sm.jpg



i'm confused. is the city free or are the...ah nevermind.

Sad Max
06-07-2008, 10:30 PM
The ambiguity is part of the draw.

ugafan
06-07-2008, 10:33 PM
The ambiguity is part of the draw.

lol. i was wondering why the bottom few buttons on leonard's shirt were undone.