Salvation Mountain

Caro and I crossed into California yesterday with much excitement. My friend Mallory Hill told us that Salvation Mountain was just about an hour and a half from the coast and Caroand I were anxious to see it. We had started our drive all the way from Northern Arizona that day so we were racing the sun to get to Salvation Mountain by daylight.

For those of you who have never heard of Salvation Mountain, it was built by a man named Leonard Knight, 79 years old. We first learned about it from the book/movie "into the wild", which we are huge fans of. In the movie, this guy named chris graduates college, sells all his stuff and makes his way into alaska. but before that, he goes to salvation mountain, where he meets leonard, a man who loves god and is crazy about jesus.

as we are driving to salvation mountain, we are just hoping we can find it in time before the sun goes down, driving through tiny town after tiny town finally arriving in Niland, California. After asking someone at the only gas station in town we get some direction. Finally, after driving through the desert, we see it from a distance. so beautiful. and as we pull up to it, we see

leonard (the same leonard who played himself in the movie) !!! he's chillin' outside of his covered truck, where he has lived for 18 years by himself. we jump out of the car and he jumps up, so excited to see us. we introduce ourselves and he says, "come let me show you my mountain. i'm really excited about it. a lot of people really love my mountain."

so he hobbles toward his man-made mountain telling us how he spent the last 30 years making it with his bare hands. He first takes us into his man-made cave he calls "the museum" where inside he had painted trees he had made himself with tires and branches he had found in the desert, covered with adobe he had picked off the ground and painted with donated paints. We follow him in utter amazement. Everywhere written on the walls and man-made trees is "God is love" and "Jesus loves you" and the sinner's prayer: "jesus i'm a sinner please come upon my body and into my heart".

"I never could do anything to please anybody, but everybody really loves my mountain" he says with a little laugh.

Then we follow him out of his cave and to his mountain when he tell us that we should climb the yellow brick road to the top of his mountain and look around! So we do just that.

After we explore the mountain at sunset we walk back down to sit with Leonard who sits on the back on a broken down pick up truck. We thank him and tell him how much his mountain means to us. He hands us a dvd, post cards, and magnets all with pictures of his mountain on them. He thanks us for coming. We then explained to Leonard that we've been struggling with our faith lately, and that meeting him and seeing this mountain has been a great encouragement to us.

"I'm really glad you said that, it really means a lot."

then he tells us how much God loves us and how just saying a little prayer, "Jesus, I love you." could change your life. he kept saying, "just love god...keep it simple."

sitting there, listening to leonard talk to us about how god loves us was incredible. I don't know if I can explain this but hearing that from a man like Leonard really makes you believe it. we couldn't help but listen with tears falling down our faces marveling at the beauty of it all. it should be said that this road trip for us isn't just about seeing the west coast, but it's about figuring things out, working out our faith. we ask too many questions, we are too skeptical of everything. so hearing leonard talk about how simple it is really made sense to us. we drove away peacefully knowing that we don't have to know all the answers. if we just simply love god and surrender our lives to him, he can do incredible things. like he did with leonard, just a simple man who loves god. now people come from all over the world to see his mountain. whether they are religious or not, they are moved by the simple beauty of it, and the love leonard has.

leonard told us they are trying to make the mountain a national treasure. there is a facebook page for it. go to it and "like" it. the more votes, and the more popular it gets, the better chance there is for congress to approve it as a national treasure. go here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Salvation-Mountain/304620534545?ref=search&v=wall

if you ever get a chance to go to salvation mountain, you must.

feeling loved,

laine and caro.