guys good morning you may not understand this adventure but I got into it it's
been over three years since I've stayed overnight in Slab City
and I'm not gonna be alone there and I think
everything's gonna be okay I'm gonna go check it out slab City USA
the last free place on earth Jax do you member this place
you recognize this road it's been a few years yeah
coming up on our right here this building is the unofficial welcome to
Slab City sign doesn't say anything about slab city anymore though there's a
Salvation Mountain that you are right there Adobe and acrylic paint
here's another military kiosk here slab city welcomed and see in front of me
here's a sheriff so this place is well patrolled House u.s. Border Patrol but
still police do come out here it's not that
this is a lawless area there are laws and rules it's just free to camp out
here and no telling how many people are out here camping in the winter
more than RTR definitely there's and hopefully I'm not too late the group
Terry and Scott and Jason and hope they're all out here I'm gonna try to
find him yep good old slab city everybody it's been a while huh a lot of
people from the RTR kind of came out here to a spot out on near tank Road and
the lows this place has changed a lot since I've been out here a lot less
tweakers and druggies so that's a good thing we're getting lots of Sun it's
nice I got Jason and Candice of camping with the Kelly's next to me and Angelo
is next to me get some solar hair in a couple days we're actually going to see
temperatures rising up into the 80s out here in California in the winter so yeah
I know there's a lot of people making YouTube videos a slab city lately so I'm
not going to bore you with that kind of stuff from but from day to day I'll be
taking the bike out and checking out a few things and sharing it with you just
so you can see and then soon enough I'll be back to normal
vlogging traveling and stuff but I could use up to a week out here guys I could
you know why not but I want to keep everything fresh for y'all so let's let
Jax sniff around and see what he thinks
okay time to go explore slab city guys on the bike this will be interesting
and this is going to be my setup I'm going to put my hero six in the backpack
and I'm gonna have my hero four here on the chest mount because I think it gives
the best view so far that I found for the bike I've noticed that if you put it
on the helmet you know everywhere you look it just makes the camera go crazy
and I can't stand it I don't think other people like that and I don't have a
place to mount it on the handlebars or anywhere else just yes so we're gonna go
with this for now and we're gonna go explore slab city here in 2018 just be
mindful I don't care to stop at other people's camps out here outside of our
little group right here cuz a lot of people are really into their their
privacy then they don't want to be bothered so we'll ride through and I'll
make the right stops where I can to share a little bit of this with you so
well our first stop here guys is the range in Slab City not a whole lot going
on in the daytime or during the week but you guys ever seen the movie into the
wild great movie please watch that if you have not seen that this place was a
featured in the movie I will just mention they have not upgraded the
furniture seating arrangement in several years but yeah every Saturday night
talent show music going on they run generators and light this place up they
serve hot dogs and hamburgers over here and it's a good time I'm gonna check it
out on Saturday open mic that's what they call it an open mic on Saturdays
like I said the daytime nothing going on Slab City is a weird place lots of just
dogs roaming around lots of mental illness lot the drug use a lot of people
are here that don't want to be here but they're they're forced to be here you
want to live out here people have been living out here for free for over 20
years there are no limits there are rules and there are laws like I said but
it's still free and I think that's why there's a lot of garbage everywhere
pretty much number one concern of everybody as always is it safe well it's
safe if you mind your own business and if you're with a good group of people
lots of burned up abandoned rvs and trailers and trash everywhere and the
smell can be overwhelming sometimes but it's only like this in certain areas
there's a lot of art and there is a lot of beauty to Slab City as well which is
really weird you wouldn't think about it but there are a lot of creative people
out here who have nothing to do except sit out here in the desert and come up
with ways to create art I'm a nomad by nature I love to change things up all
the time and to see new stuff so being parked like this in a spot for years and
years and years and especially in the summer when it's 120 degrees no thanks
but there are people who brave it out year-round out here at slab city which
is just incredible and they've built I'm not even going to show you some of the
good ones but there are some interesting and truss structures out here you know
there's no building codes you can pretty much build and live in and create
whatever you want out here and a lot of people barter and trade for stuff they
have UPS deliveries you'll notice that slab city all these little roads are
actually marked and labeled and US Mail UPS FedEx comes out here if you dial
nine-one-one and tell them where you're at they'll ambulance and police will
come out here so it's it's a real place it's not just the middle of the desert
to give you the quickest briefest history of this place possible without
going into details it's an old government property that was
abandoned many decades ago and all that's left are the concrete slabs of
all the buildings throughout the desert hence slab City and it's disputed who
owns the land for four years as far as the state of California or the teachers
board of administrative or something like that but either way no matter every
year they talk about kicking everybody out and not letting people live here and
it just never happens just decades and decades now people living out here for
free but what that said they actually closed down the rest area about 16 miles
away from here it was a rest area where he could get drinking water and a free
dump station and I feel that when that was open free to dump your waste ever
since they closed that down years ago people started turning this place into a
cesspool and just dumping their tanks everywhere right where they live so
that's unfortunate anyway let's get back on the road you can probably imagine
solar is pretty popular out here as far as powering things but if you don't want
to have to leave once a week to go dump your tanks there are alternatives you
know people bring portable tanks and then load them onto a second vehicle a
truck or something there's also a couple services here who fill up water and they
give you the big 100 gallon square containers and then they just come swap
those out once a week or 55 gallon water things you could you can sign up for
that and pay a fee to have them come out and give you water or come to come pump
your as well just another option here is one
of many slabs City community bulletin boards find all sorts of stuff from
advertising work to stuff for sale to missing people the son works over there
I'm not a hundred percent sure what that is but there are a few paid solar cafes
with internet out here but AT&T Verizon work really well and those of us with
hotspot devices that we pay for Wi-Fi it works great out here just know us TV
stations gonna get about 26 Mexican stations but no us free over-the-air TV
like I say most people out here more than 50 percent of the people out here
do not want to be bothered at all but some welcome it like this individual
here with a sign out front that says all welcome looked at his trailer look at
his property here look at how he has decorated this truck every detail look
at that
oh my goodness look at this truck guys there is everything on this truck I mean
it's just gonna sit here and wither away anyway why not turn it into art right
that's exactly what this gentleman has done you will find Morden this than you
know what to do with it slab city I mean sure yeah you could go to Joshua
Tree and I'm sure it's a beautiful part and never been there before but you come
to slab city and see the shoe tree not all shoes get to stay on the branches
that's right it has to be a good shoe to make it stay a strong shoe art it's hard
to tell sometimes if some camps are abandoned or if they just always live
like this yeah I don't know then that's why some people are scared to even pick
up trash because it could be someone's treasures it could be their home that
could be out doing something and they'll be back but you don't enter anybody's
camp unless it unless there's something sign that says come on in which reminds
me you know I want to relax I'm hanging out with some good people back at camp
so there is a chance that I may not be shooting a video out every other day you
guys let me know I've been here before I filmed here three years ago and there's
lots of other people filming here so let me know in the comments below what you
guys want me to do I'm not gonna be on the road for probably a week though so I
can keep it fresh as much as possible or just share some more a Jackson eyes life
in the desert here other than that and just hanging out having a good time guys
enjoying being parked for once and of course no trip to slab city is complete
without visiting Salvation Mountain here you're something special for you guys
they are expanding Salvation Mountain no okay the creator of this has passed away
but his legend clearly continues to grow here at slab city with the Adobe and
acrylic paint yeah pretty colorful and lots and lots of detail look they even
color the scooters here that's right and these vehicles will never run or move
again so they turn it into art
jeez
so how much time do you have on your hands a slab city well enough time to
make a replica version of Salvation Mountain mini mm-hmm
something about all the the bright colors just really makes me smile though
never gets old yes they still accept donations of paint in case you want to
help contribute sign asking you to stay on the yellow brick road so we'll do
that check out all the little caves in here oh my gosh
it's like a cheaper version of a Disney almost almost
just doze and goes
well it looks like the yellow brick road goes up the mountain I'm doing go for a
walk I don't speak that language but hmm Wow
it just cracks me up here man - cool and here we are on the very very top of
Salvation Mountain everybody quite possibly the strangest thing out here in
the desert well it is believe me by far check it out sometime guys
forever out here do you want to see more of this stuff from slab city
let me know in the comments below if you're sick of it let me know - gonna
head back to camp and that's gonna do it for me guys
this video got too long I am happy I'm safe I am absolutely enjoying the
company out here at slab city and I'll catch back up to you when I can have a
good day guys bye bye