When we finally did get out to Salvation Mountain, we learn’t that it was the evening of the Annual Slab City Prom.

After all our efforts, in vain, to get there the day before… We would have completely missed out on this amazing opportunity.
Some days it’s way easier to believe in a guiding force of some sort?

Now, Slab City doesn’t actually have a high school and most of the prom goers wouldn’t have gone to said school should it have existed.
But, its a great excuse to dress up, have your picture taken and have a general razz.

We went, we saw, we were really tired, we slept in the back of our trusty Jeep, which is proving to be most useful on these sort of journeys.

The next morning we woke to find that we had (practically) parked in the amazing artist, Charles Russell’s front ‘yard’. You can read more on Lara’s awesome blog.

So, much excess waffling from me but now we get to the real news.
Pictured here, our other ‘neighbours’ for the night.

Chuck and his son, Nathan, have spent the last three and a half years travelling around the United States on their bicycles. Slept under bridges, endured the rain, all of the things that go with living on or near your bicycle. They’ve seen all 50 continental US states and ridden an estimate of 28,000 miles according to Chuck.

Chuck is supremely intelligent, seems highly educated and has some interesting/questionable ideas.
Nathan can’t be a day older than 16.

They have been living in Slab City for 6 months now.

Salvation Mountain is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen.
It stands as tribute to Leonard Knight’s love.
It stands as testament to his endurance.

After more than 25 years at it, I think we can say that Leonard is one determined fellow.
And a pretty nice guy… very quick to offer a smile, have a chat and he even gave Jamie a small piece of his beloved mountain.

Thanks Leonard.

You can see more of Salvation Mountain and Leonard here.