 Look at this little alien speeder bike Hey there just a quick heads up my book the long way home is now for sale at dozerbook.com It's about my very first adventure from Honduras to Boulder You know how to make a peanut butter Nutella wrap deluxe You throw a banana in there and now it's a French crepe Is there any point to trying to? Fix bed head when you're on a bike tour. I mean all you're gonna do is wear a helmet, right? And you're not trying to impress anybody, so I'm gonna go like this. That's all good, right? All right, thank you cozy bed, which was actually a lot better, but I thought it was gonna be All right, buddy. Let's go Onward. Oh that Sun is coming up. It's 6 30 my earliest start And I'm feeling good Saturday morning and today I'm sending out a whole bunch of love and support to Amelia Who is running a 100 kilometer race? She's gonna do great cuz she's amazing So I'll be thinking about her today sending her some Senator love. Here we go. No crash. He's no flat. He's no whammy's off to slab city I've been excited about slab city for a while and all the Art that I'm about to see It's really one of the main reasons why I picked this route Cuz I've always wanted to go here So there's a lot of different art At least from what I've seen online But the most well-known one is Salvation Mountain And it's right here So I've been warned that the people here are a little Honorary and I was walking up and he's like it's closed. Okay. All right. Can I ask you when it opens? And he's like it's it's closed Not the friendliest of welcomes, but I kind of expected that You know these desert artists people are They're interesting to say the least slab city the last free place Unless you show up before 8 a.m This is fascinating. It looks like a post apocalyptic I mean movie set Mainly because it just it makes me smile. It makes me laugh. It's just goofy, you know It definitely takes skill and talent to put something like this together even though it looks just like a bunch of junk stuck to a truck, but There's more to it than that and I appreciate the effort a little bit weird walking around right now after my Not so warm welcome welcome at Salvation Mountain. I feel like everybody here is Looking at me weird. This reminds me a little bit of a permanent burning man where there's all these different camps and everybody has their own theme and They're all Fascinating interesting wacky wild So here I am riding along wondering what I'm doing here Nobody's around and then this very happy smiley face comes out. It's dr. Spencer. How you doing my friend? Hey, I'm doing great It's a beautiful day. We got a little wind, but the sun is shining sure we're in slab city And we get 350 days of sunshine here and I have a degree in solar and Engineering and I have put together a solar system that I'll be showing Ryan shortly and You guys also and great. Oh, yeah, amazing. What do you do here? Well? I plant Right over here if you'll take a gander over here you guys. I have over 6,000 plants. They're botanic It's a botanical gardens. I've got seven different types of spinnages five different types of kales I've got bamboo from all over the world from Burma from Thailand from Vietnam I grow all most all of my vegetables that I eat right here and Last summer I put in a swimming pool. I've got a solar oven That the solar oven is big enough to cook 12 large pizzas at the same time and we have an amazing Dinners here. That's amazing. And so you said this is a church. It's a church of enlightenment And they basically it's a place to come to raise consciousness because if we don't raise a planetary consciousness Oh, we may succumb to some of the foolery that is happening that we all recognize This is your swimming pool In the summertime I will go in that Four or five sometimes six times a day. Yeah, but when it's a hundred and twenty and this next year I got the the new earbuds and I'm listening to James missioner's great books on Red to me and I'll be sitting here in one of those loud floating lounge chairs listening to the great Greatest literature everywhere. I might listen to Shakespeare and listen to Gerda Then I have my solar system here. I've got this brand new. Are you familiar with eco flow? Oh, yeah. Oh man So this powers your whole world. Yes, I run four freezers to refrigerators air conditioning all my pumps There and all my power tools. So I'm I'm Quite nicely set up. Yeah, absolutely. And these are all the batteries that store the energy. Yes And this is two systems. I have one. I have a 4000 watt system that runs the back two trailers. So this is my flying machine, Ryan that thing flies Well, it will and it will duplicate what a dragonfly does Dragonfly is the most maneuverable creature in the universe that we have found they outperform a hummingbird and That'll have that'll have two wings on each side like a dragonfly and it those wings will flap at 20 times per second Greatest advancement in human mobility. It'll exceed Exceed the automobile the airplane and all that because it'll be a vertical lift And then you'll be able to take off and it's an ultra light And you know what the definition of an ultra light is no with the conditions to be an ultra light No, what things it can't weigh the the machine itself can't weigh over 254 pounds. Okay It can't carry more than five gallons of fuel, but that's all battery operated Wow, okay, so we eliminate that and it's not to exceed 65 miles an hour But who's gonna who's gonna stop you in 74 the air police the air police So what is the story of slab city that this was Dunlap military base? Okay, and in 1940 I'll give you the short okay. Yeah 1947 they closed about half the bases in the country after World War two and When they closed this base General Pat Patton had been out here teaching artillery and so when they closed the base they had these all Artillery shells and the commanding general said to the ask the Defense Department What do we do with these unexploded shells and they said as dig a 20-foot hole and bury it Huh, and don't tell anybody where it is. So we may be standing on it right now So that is one of the reason among others why this area has not ever been developed, okay? So there's no rent. No mortgage. No property taxes and no building Restrictions here. Okay, as you can see from the Tower of Enlightenment over here You can see from the Tower of Enlightenment there I have built that not one Permit or building inspectors ever go do that So my creative energies can be expressed here without all the government regulations Yeah, and so everybody who lives there's off the grid completely solar powered in some way Yes, and that's another reason why it's not being developed because it would cost too much to bring in sewage You know in water and electricity out here And how many people live out here in the summertime? It's two hundred two fifty in the winter time It goes up to four thousand. Oh, wow because so many snowbirds come out here because there's no rent No, it's quite free to be out. Yeah, I bet it is. How long have you been here? Seven years seven years, right? Oh, yeah, I love this. This is really nice and we we put all this together from just Scrap wood that was rotting out at the old riverbed out here And I went out and gathered this all up and we tried to get pieces that Had the right angle and that to to make it such as as the hobbits would build So what is this angel? The angel of man's better nature, and she's and she always turns to face the way The Sun is as a reminder to us to always face our problems head-on Don't be the coward that dies a thousand deaths be the warrior that faces it and Never fears his own death. This is a her and all and people say a hurdle. What's a hurdle? I said it's a urinal for both boys and girls and girls can be frontwards or backwards and Us boys we pee frontwards, but don't pee on the yellow because some of the girls sit on that So that way they don't have to go trampling in my turn. It's a hurdle It's a her and all and if somebody wants to market this because if you can imagine See in a stadium of people there and you see you see on the women's line for the bathroom You see them 200 Waiting 200 a line 200 people long. That's because they're waiting for a six-foot stall to go in I said and us guys we go shoulder to shoulder and just pee pee in a trough I said if we put these shoulder to shoulder in the women's they could pee as quickly as as guys do the hurdle And then it's composting or it goes it goes right here because we're in the desert It Percolates without any smell you smell anything. Nope. I sure don't we've had a thousand people peeing that this books the Goldilocks mission it's available on Amazon and this book is about our next migration to a a Earth-like planet and we now have discovered millions of planets out there and we're gonna find one that has Conditions far better than Mars Although Mars is our really aren't our next step. When did you write this? I wrote this in 2009? and and So it goes in here and tells a whole story about the sky debts that travel Travel on three ships and you can see the three ships here And I have figured out how to go multiple times faster than a speed of light So we're gonna need that because the distances that we're traveling to other star systems is just incredible Yeah, that's far So we have to we have to overcome that and and I'm I know the the power of the universe is There block up is not gonna stop us from going going throughout the universe at speeds warp speeds every year twice a year I've I Sponsored the slab city Olympics and I'm one of the oldest pole vultures in the world and I have a Olympic javelin here and we throw the javelin and you can see this is the shot put to four kilo shot put We have the discus We do that we run the 50 meter dash the 100 meter dash and That's to get the kids out here into physical health in that and try to keep them off the drugs that are going there So this is a non drug Encampment and no cigarette smoking nothing nothing that's damaging to the body Do we do here because this body's a temple to raise our consciousness? Let's go up here go to the tower Be very careful. I will be We're going to the tippy top And what I you didn't see is I've been up here for about an hour and a half helping him put up this new sign He gave me a saw and a drill and just just went to work He totally trusted me and now there's a new sign on the top of the tower of enlightenment And I got to put my mark here and feels good to do a little bit of carpentry I'm a total total beginner, but it was fun. So dr. Spencer. What are we doing here today? We are fixing the American flagpole Which represents the finest document that was ever written and it's called the Constitution of the United States We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal They're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among these are life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness We're definitely in the pursuit of happiness But isn't that about the nicest? Wording that you could ever think of We did it right on we got it up there. I pledge allegiance to the flag Cheers my friend Peanut butter and jellies This is a awesome moment in life here. I had no idea that I'd be hanging out in Slab City this long I had no idea I was gonna meet dr. Spencer and Michael and eat and peanut butter and jellies and enjoying life Mm-hmm. All right, my new friend Michael is gonna take me to East Jesus. What's that all about? It's an art community in a very strange place. You're gonna like it. All right. I'm excited and Just so you know I got to dr. Spencer's At seven in the morning it is now one in the afternoon I don't know if I'm going very far today, but that's all right because I'm right here right now and I'm loving it Hey guys, hope you're friendly So this is East Jesus All right, and Michael stays here from time to time he lives near LA, but this is why do you like coming here? Actually because it's someplace. You'll never see any place else and you either like it or you don't you either get it Or you don't and the people here are wonderful and we have a great time I Like this galactic, please patrol These are quite the art cars Open farts are more toxic than car exhaust cigarette smoke and coal fire power Why so much hate against dolphins? They're like the most beloved animal You could spend hours days in this entire city Checking out everything. There's so many little intricacies everywhere and most things just Put a smile on your face or make you think about something differently and make you appreciate the beauty that artists put into all their creations and yeah, it's all good Like this look at this all this broken glass And an old piano with a typewriter Because why not? What I like is that a place like this is giving life to what a lot of people would consider junk, right? But out here. It's not junk. It's art and it's fun to look at And it makes you realize that maybe some of the things that we just throw away willy-nilly We could turn into some pretty cool art Look at this little alien speeder bike Yeah, kind of feel like I'm in Star Wars out here Star Wars cantina fold aliens So one of the guys in there just said that They've been doing this for over 12 years now and over 2,000 artists have all collaborated They stay for months at a time to put this together Thank you people of East Jesus. That was awesome and right next to East Jesus is dots place dot How you doing pretty good? How are you today doing great? What's the story with your installation? Well, just like a lot of other people the desert inspired me to create artwork And I've made kind of like an art camp. We call it amazing art Kind of when you travel around and look through it You'll see how it's a bunch of trailers kind of mishmashed around each other Looping on each other and each one has installation work inside of them like this one that you're going to explore called the Skeletrarium that starts with my mummified mermaid and then moves into all sorts of bones and weird What not some things that I've collected out here And then some of the other trailers have like books in them or a tax attorney me's owner party So pretty popular one too. Why do you think this area in specific is inspires artists? The desert air it's got to be the desert air and just like the freedom the the vast Expans of you know being able to see so far and I don't know it's just inspiring Yeah, and you're always adding to it. I'm guessing. Oh, yeah Yeah, I've been here never years, and I'll just keep adding I keep adding and keep adding until I'm completely bored with it This feels like you know when you're a kid and you build forts in your living room when you have blankets and cardboard boxes And you just create your own fantasy land. That's essentially what dot has created here. I love it Little vanity to do your makeup. Oh, it's like she has a library for sure. Look at that That's a lot of books in here Whole trailer full of books and this obviously is the living room Wow, look at this It's like a nice cozy bed right there Yeah It is like a maze in here. You can just keep on cruising around Seeing everything taxidermy dinner party Look at this just kind of hilarious and here is the mermaid Cove. Oh Wow, there's actually a Pool right there. I bet that's awesome in the summertime Got a little island vibe in here, you know, I've just been smiling all day Which is a good feeling smiling and laughing and just in awe of what humans can create You know a lot of people would think though this is just like weird, but I don't think it's weird I think it's very cool, and I like when adults Express themselves in ways that society might seem think or childish, you know, like this isn't real art It's goofy. It's blah blah blah, you know, but I love this I love adults tapping into their childlike spirit. How long have you been creating art? I mean, I've probably been creating art my entire life I was always one of those kids who would go to a thrift store or even find something in the neighbor's garbage And turn it into something more interesting. I always loved, you know, old junk shops And things like that people's garages anywhere that you've got a stockpile of stuff And then my brain just starts going but I did computers for about 20 years And then when I retired from that I decided that I just was gonna travel So I was doing like everybody else traveling around and then when I got here It was like I think I want to make something for other people to come see. Yeah, so How much longer do you think you'll stay here? Every day it could be the day that I leave But not yet a little more time. I got a few more things I want to do here It's not quite finished yet So sometimes you wake up with plans And then sometimes those plans change, especially when you're on an adventure I came here in the morning thinking I'd spend a couple hours check out some art and continue on about 65-ish miles But then I met Dr. Spencer Fascinating human loving human kind human my kind of human and He's like just stay here and the itchy part of me was like I got to keep going. I'm on a tight schedule I got to make the miles And it took a while to be like, you know what I'm okay with it now like this is what life is all about This is what being the boss of me is all about I can take a day off And explore a fascinating place and connect with the wonderful human and that's what I've done And so I'm gonna stay here in this little RV back here And I'll get up tomorrow and ride hard. How's that sound and I would have had like a 20 mile an hour headwind all day So it would have been a miserable day of riding that way when instead. I've been hanging out here having the time of my life My heart is happy. This is why I travel. This is the exact reason why I travel to connect with amazing humans and I'm really happy to have met Dr. Spencer Life is good