This is like 200 miles from Los Angeles, but totally worth the drive.  Salvation Mountain is an amazing art piece created by Leonard Knight.  His story is amazing.  He found God and decided to create a balloon that would spread the message that God is Love.  It didn’t work.  Years of his life he tried to create this balloon and the first Salvation Mountain…with no luck.  Finally he rebuilt this art piece with Adobe and lots of paint.  He lived here and worked on it through the generosity of people bringing paint donations.  He has since stopped working on this art piece (I think due to age/health) but people still volunteer to keep it up.

This amazing artwork is at the entrance to Slab City or “The Slabs”.  It’s a former US Marine training base.  People have moved in and live in whatever they can find or bring.  It’s a bit like the results of the apocalypse, but really neat.  They even have an internet cafe that has an open mic and music.  It’s worth checking out. (I also stopped along the way here from LA to see Palm Springs, the Salton Sea and to geocache.)