LEONARD KNIGHT: It was called Technicolor Mountain, Mountain
of Love, hundreds of different names.
And people just decided to call it Salvation Mountain.
I didn't have a vision.
When I came here, I wanted to put "God is love to the world"
on a hot air balloon.
And I spent 15 years in Nebraska and Vermont trying to
make a hot air balloon, and the thing rotted out on me
here and never got up.
So I told God, I'm going to stay one week and make an
eight-foot one.
24 years later, I'm still here.
I stopped my vehicle running away from going to church, I
didn't want to go to church.
And I stopped my car beside the road-- and this is all
through the internet now, all over the world.
I started saying, Jesus, I'm a sinner, please
come into my heart.
Jesus, I'm a sinner, please come into my heart.
10 or 15 times.
Tears started to come to my eyes and I was all by myself.
And by God, I've been changed my attitude for 50 years.
And there's probably 60,000 to 80,000 gallons of paint on
that ocean floor.
Now as you walk up here, you can see the
waterfalls more clearly.
10 years ago, the farmers gave me 100 bales of straw, and I
made a little igloo in here.
It's got about 100 bales of straw in it, and it's been
about 10 years ago I made it.
And I'd like to show you inside of it.
Made this 10 or 11 years ago with 100 bales of straw.
It was really pretty easy to build.
So nine years ago I told the Lord, I'm going to start a
museum over here with 9,000 bales of hay in it.
And I think I should've started that when I was about
four years old.
The big red flowers, I just poked with my
fist, a gallon of adobe.
Congress has declared this a national treasure in the
center of the United States of America.
- What are the dolls and things like that?
LEONARD KNIGHT: It's stuff I put in there.
- Why did you put it in there?
LEONARD KNIGHT: I don't know.
Maybe I shouldn't have.
And I'd like to show you this museum in here where I've got
9,000 bales of hay in it, and I've been working
nine years on it.
Oops.
I pulled all these sticks out in the desert.
Nine years, with my little Toyota car, mostly.
And I'd like to show you in here about 10 feet.
This here is a truck tire tree full of adobe.
10 car tires.
And I got adobe in them, and poked sticks into the adobe.
Tens of thousands of people take pictures of it, like it.
They know that everything in here is out in the desert.
Doesn't cost anything.
I find car doors out in the desert,
windows out in the desert.
And another reason I like this is, I can make 1,000 flowers
in one day with the best adobe there is, and the whole
mountain gives me the clay.
I've got a lot of happy memories about this.
And it's getting better all the time, it seems like.
Any big church that can go around and claim they're the
best there is, is a dangerous statement.
We shouldn't say that, because Jesus is the best there is.
And sooner or later, these churches are going to turn
everybody over to Jesus Christ.
But I'm a forerunner on it.
I live in that fire truck out there, and I'm as
comfortable as can be.
In summer when it gets hot, I got a little hammock out there
I can live in seven months out of the year.
So I've never been happier in my life, having this thing
going the way it's going.
For me to plan on something, forget it.
Every time I do, it just don't work.
For 45 years of my life, I've had a one-track mind.
To put God Almighty to the whole universal
world and keep it simple.
God loves us all.
Don't get complicated with love.
Let's keep it simple.
And I'd like to show you something up in here which is
very important, and I didn't know it happened.
Right here, when I made all those flowers, it was
just fun doing it.
No value to it at all.
But this had a crack in it right here, and it was weak
and flimsy.
And I put a flower in there, and it toughened it in like a
cement block.
So without me knowing it, every time there was a crack,
heehee, guess what?
I'll put a flower in it and poke it, make it look good,
and it strengthens the whole mountain.
- Do you work on this every day?
LEONARD KNIGHT: Yeah.
This morning, I put all that blue on this morning from
about 5:30 on.
And I have to work on it early in the morning because when
traffic comes in, boy, thank God I just get to it.
Nine hours straight, usually.
Well, I guess you can tell I like to paint.
But I like finding cracks now because I can put a piece of
adobe in there and hit it, and you can feel
the strength of that.
Man.
The whole mountain's going to be strong if it cracks 10,000
times and I put another 10,000 flowers on it.
What I like best of all is that people come in.
And so I have no schedule.
I've had 40 motorcycle groups come in at 10 o'clock
at night one time.
I was really tired and I was kind of grumpy.
And they said, well, we all brought flashlights.
We want a flashlight tour.
It was the most fun I've ever had.
People donate paint.
I estimate over 200,000 gallons.
That's a fifth of a million gallons of paint.
But it's as thick as a two-ply tire.
And I don't buy anything.
And I give out 6,000 DVDs, or 13,000.
I give.
I don't want somebody to--
I just give.
- Where do you get your adobe and your hay?
LEONARD KNIGHT: The farmers give me too much hay because
there's a million bales all over the valley.
And people donate paint, and people donate stuff.
Because I donate DVDs to people.
I give them.
And people give me.
And you can't out-give God.
So I'm sitting here with a lot of paint, and a lot of adobe,
and a lot of happiness, and a lot of love.
People are coming in and just plain liking it.
I wanted to put "God is love to the world"
45 years of my life.
And finally I've got "God is love universal." And I'm
keeping it simple, and I'm telling everybody on the
internet that God is universal.
He loves everybody in the whole world.
So don't get complicated with love.
Let's keep it simple, let's keep it really simple.
And the kids on the Internet are helping me an awful lot to
get this worldwide.