Salvation Mountain Is The Most Surreal Place You Need To Visit In California
The massive folk art sculpture in a blistering desert is one of the most surreal places anywhere.
Salvation Mountain, near the Salton Sea, California - Dec. 2010
Brian CC BY / Via Flickr: bdearth
Salvation Mountain is a gateway to another world. Or several.
Rising out of a stretch of blistering desert, the mountain is actually a work of "outsider art" at the entrance to Slab City, California's famous squatter community. It's just down the road from the tiny town of Niland and not far from the haunting ruins of Bombay Beach. The way is marked with hand-painted signs.
I made my way to Salvation Mountain earlier this year, driving past wilting palm farms and the toxic expanse of the Salton Sea. Near a brimming canal, I stopped to talk to two older men, one pushing a bike, the other sipping a can beer.
"This is the desert, man," the guy with the bike told me when I asked why they had come to Slab City. "You can do what you want out here."
Jim Dalrymple II
Minutes later I arrived at Salvation Mountain, which felt like crossing into a Dr. Seuss story — if Dr. Seuss stories were set in a searing desert commune and surrounded by fancifully-painted, derelict vehicles.
The mountain itself is surprisingly accessible. Aside from a sign asking visitors to stay on the painted "yellow brick road," I was free to walk to the peak, stepping over a painted "waterfall" and through a garden of brightly painted flowers. Messages about God and love towered above me.
http://ift.tt/1ARFXtz Jim Dalrymple II
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