Art Car Caravan to Douglas- Day 4 of 6
Day 4
Philo woke us all up at 7:30 this morning. Payback will be sweet.
But we woke up at Salvation Mountain, so there was no going back to sleep. Leonard gets up at 5AM and was well ready to give us a tour by the the time we had all coffeed-up. He gave us a tour of the new tree he is building out of telephone poles, big sticks and tires. It's absolutely amazing. Go look at the photos now!!! He has created many small rooms and caverns that wind around the trees he's making. I don't think he will ever stop. And that's a good thing.
I did not mention in yesterday's post that last night Marilyn Dreampeace had some car trouble. Her car would not start when we were still a good 100 miles or more away from Salvation Mountain, but we were able to jump it and make good headway, until the car died again. Luckily we were right in the center of Niland (just 5 minutes from Salvation mountain). So Marilyn and Shalom (who was following her in their Prius) deiced to get a motel in Niland, and try to take the car to a mechanic in the morning.
So here's the part about the Niland Motel: I'm guessing that Niland has the population of about 150 people. And their local industry is probably Salvation Mountain tourists, and Crystal Meth. Niland is in the middle of the Southern California desert, and it's not on the way to or from anything. Except Salvation Mountain and the Salton Sea. So you can get a pretty good picture of the local motel. Now Marilyn and Shalom just wanted a room quickly so they could charge the car's battery and figure out what was wrong. So Marilyn goes to get a room from the front desk of this hotel, the woman behind the counter looks a little worse for ware and keeps telling Marilyn that they're not done "fixing up" the hotel. Marilyn can't really see where they have started fixing it up - but no matter, she needs a room. So after the woman has a long argument with another apparent "owner" of the hotel as to where the keys to the rooms are, she finally gets a room, gets a key and gives the woman some money for the room - they only accept cash of corse, which the woman puts directly into her pocket.
In the morning Marilyn and Shalom are mostly concerned with getting the car to a mechanic, but cant help notice the scenes happening inside the motel rooms next to theirs,as the doors are wide open and many and the inhabitants are loudly going about their substance abused lives. Directly outside the door to their room, someone had decided to stack tires as they were trying to change a flat by using any replacement tire they could find. Several, it seemed, did not fit and wound up in a pile in front of Marilyn and Shalom's door.
Finally they were able to get the car to a mechanic, whose side business seemed to be cock fighting, and he put a new alternator in the car.
Needless to say, Marilyn and Shalom were happy to get out of there, car fixed. And we were happy too, as they caught right up with the caravan by the end of the day.
Meanwhile, the rest of us took a quick tour of Bombay Beach to see the flooded remains of decaying trailer homes. It looks like the surface of the moon. I love it. I could probably take photos in that area for the rest of my life and not run out of subjects.
We hit the road to Tucson- stopping there at Coleena's house, who was very kind to put us up, then pushed on to Bisbee.
We drove until about 10:30, and finally rolled into Bisbee to a cheering crowd headed by Kate Pearson, who was kind enough to set up a little party for us.
A handful of us got rooms, or I should say trailers, at the Shady Dell, a motel made of vintage trailers all fully decorated to the era. Philo and Joanne got the Tiki Trailer, and I got a little one person Howdy-Doody theme. More photos of those in tomorrows post- when it's light out. We love the Shady Dell!! (see photos)
Creator Leanord Knight at Salvation Mountain (Kelly Lyles sneeks up behind)
Salton Sea, Bombay Beach, CA
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