Steve and I talked about how we could maybe see ourselves living in a place like Joshua Tree at some point (but we say that about every place we visit). It is a very unique landscape and there are little homes scattered along the dirt roads throughout the countryside. It's hot, dusty and a peculiar place. It makes you wonder who the people are that live out there. Were they born there? Did they move there for work? How do people out there make a living? Maybe it's where a lot of people go to escape a colder climate. I guess it's like any other place, but when you visit a piece of land so different than where you are from it's hard to wrap your head around it.
Noah's Art Place
Steve hard at work
A very tired Freddie
The drive to Calipatria along the Salton Sea.
What an incredible place! I've wanted to visit this site for a while now and was excited to see it in person. 81 year old Leonard Knight is the master mind behind this incredible sculpture. He was inspired by his love for people and God and started building it in his 40's. Up until very recently he lived on site in his truck that he converted into a little camper, but his health has been deteriorating in his old age and he has been in a nursing home since November. It's built mostly out of donated materials, adobe style with clay and bales of hay. Thick paint is gooped over the whole thing. It's a three story high paradise of color and magic, and the feeling you get from being in, on or around it is pure joy.
This is what you see as you're driving up.
Salvation Mountain!
As you leave.
On our way toward Oceanside Steve needed to stop and ride an A.T.V. through the desert for his project. So he packed his video camera and tripod in his back pack and headed off.
The scenery started to get greener as we headed toward the ocean, it reminded us of Kelowna.
Spending an occasional night in a dive makes you really appreciate the clean and comfortable places. We got into Oceanside late, Freddie was sick of the car and we were too. We pulled up to a place for $39 a night and just stayed feeling too tired to search around for someplace else, and like it was too cheap to pass up. My advice, don't do that. You'd think we would have learned by now. The carpet was wet (why?). The heater didn't work and although we were still in California, it was a cold night. The bathtub had a hole in it so when I gave Freddie a bath the water kind of moved in and out from inside the wall of the tub. The bed was so short that both of us had our feet sticking over the end (I thought all beds were the same length, what's up with that?), and the table was broken so if you rested anything on it the top fell off. It was not the most comfortable place but we packed up so fast after we woke up that we were able to enjoy a beautiful morning (and rest of the day) on the beach!
Steve and Freddie "playing instruments".
Steve was safe with Freddie to protect him.
With a lot of busy days on the road behind us we have decided to spend the next couple of days in Oceanside and Carlsbad, both are right by the water and it will give Freddie and I a chance to run around on the beach while Steve edits and catalogs his footage. He has been collecting a lot of video footage for his project (maybe you want a deeper description of what this is but for now you'll just have to live with the abstract notion of "project" since I'm not sure how to describe what Steve does). Although we have been on the road a lot he has managed to get quite a bit of work done and spends a lot of the car time talking to me about his plans. Freddie and I will be tourists and play and Steve will read and write (at least for some of the time). We will be in San Francisco in 6 days and we hope to stop through L.A. for 2 more days of galleries. This beach side community has really gotten our gears turning and, like all the other places, we've been we talking about how "we could live here". We may just end up coming back in April, and who knows, maybe Steve and I will try our hand at surfing!
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