I left Slab City and on the way out I stopped at what I called Jesus Hill. It is actually named, Salvation Mountain and what I found there just blew me away. An old guy came up to me when I arrived and gave me a tour of the place. He had to sit down a couple of times because he said that there were between 60 and 80 folks a day that came by and he gave them all a tour. The whole place it built with adobe, straw bales, trees, telephone poles, found objects, you name it.
I tried to make a collage out of these photos but I cant figure out how I did it before, so I will put them in order from left to right.
that should give you an idea of the general layout of the place. The yellow going up the hill he calls the yellow brick road.
Detail of yellow brick road. He said it was easy to make
flowers, you just plunk down a bucket of mud and slam your fist into it. Let it
dry and paint, done. It is a nice walk up the yellow brick road and the view on
top is good.
Everything is adobe covered with paint and you can walk all over it. I didn’t understand a lot of what he was telling me (damn ears) but I think it had something to do with a hot air balloon that rotted out and he started the small dome down on the right with the jeep just sticking out next to it. Behind the Jeep is the BIG dome he is building which he says will be twenty times larger.
This is the inside of his little dome. There are Bible sayings and religious
symbols all over the walls. You can see the structure is all straw bales covered
with adobe and painted. No major supports in this one.
This is the top of the small dome which is unfinished, but shows the construction method. I think he must have gotten started on the BIG dome and this project has languished. He said he does all the work himself but occasionally some come by and help with the heavy stuff.
Here is the outside of the BIG dome. People bring him windows and car windshields he said. You cant see the scale of this but it is maybe thirty feet high.
This is the inside looking up through the intricate web of branches that he has
bound together with wetted down palm fronds and covered with adobe and
paint. It is just beautiful in side with the light coming down.
This is the start of one of his supports. It is all found stuff held together with what ever is handy and covered with mud. Some of the supports he calls his tire trees. He starts with tractor tires, then truck tires and finally car tires and then limbs and branches. It is an amazing feat he has accomplished. I can see some structural failures here and there, but on the whole, he is doing VERY well. God is definitely on his side on this project. I think Ken Kern the author of the Owner Built Home died when the experimental adobe home he was living in collapsed on him during a rain. This structure has just gone through a Major rain event and it really didn’t do much damage.
He is carving away a mountain to make the dome and using the dirt for his adobe.
You can just see him in the dark hole going down into the center of the BIG dome. This may give you some idea of the size of this thing.
This is the base of one of his tire trees.
The structure inside is beautiful.
The work starts here. I can tell you that that adobe is heavy stuff and sticks to everything. It is all hand done.
Detail. The roof is starting to come over the top here.
As I am leaving, another group comes in.
His Jeep is way cool. It is three dimentional lettering. I am not sure if he uses adobe under it or not but a blind man could ‘read’ this.
He said he had 1,000 gallons of paint donated.
Nice Airstream. This gives me ideas for my Avion.
This is a good way to get around the city.
On my way out I just had to snap another of the old guard station. I want one of these for deterrent effect, on the road up to my camp, without the fancy paint.
