Today, as we travel Highway 90 to this weekend’s Texas Cowboy Poetry Festival in Alpine, we’re recuperating from a year’s worth of fun that was packed into one month at Slab City.

Cheap Entertainment for All

Fun is cheap at the Slabs, with free music and entertainment options for all tastes.

From Saturday night music at the Range to meandering through the East Jesus sculpture garden. From daily happy hours with the old-timer Travel’N Pals to Wednesday night gatherings at “A Camp,” hardly a day goes by without some type of gathering.

When there’s nothing going on, Slab City people watching can turn into a day’s worth of fun.

While some folks only see the downsides of this one-of-a-kind place, we think this fun factor outweighs the negatives, so we keep returning each winter. This time we only planned to stay a few weeks, but soon after arriving it seemed as if we were meant to stay longer.

Zen Harmony with NuRVers

Having ZenNomads Sam and Tracy as neighbors made it too easy to plant temporary roots; when two couples meet and everyone clicks, you just have to take advantage of that moment.

Being around their inspirational 20-something year-old relationship was good for ours, and we never ran out of fun times (or booze!). We love these two!

Wheelin’ It to East Jesus

Nina from the fabulous young, full-time RVer blog, Wheelin’ It, also made our stay worthwhile. She was nice enough to make the day trek from Anza Borrego to the Slabs to meet us for the first time.

Actually, we’re sure she just came to see Wyatt. But she put up with us anyways so we played hooky from work to show her around. Our tour took us to East Jesus.

Riding the East Jesus Roller Coaster

Dearly departed Container Charley’s desolate landscape is alive with creativity. These mind-blowing sculptures are made with found objects around the Slabs, reminiscent of Austin’s Cathedral of Junk.

Visit repeatedly and you’ll always see something you missed the first time.

East Jesus sits on abandoned Federal land, and it’s occupants could be considered trespassers if the government cared enough to pursue an eviction. But the high costs of cleaning up the toxic land on which it sits makes an eviction unlikely.

Even so, the boring “play-by-the-rules” side of Jim and I wondered out loud: don’t the artists have any concerns about putting so much effort into a project on land that could be shut down without warning?

“Nah,” our resident artist tour guide said, “Hey, life’s a roller coaster and we’re just enjoying the ride; it could roll off the rails anytime. We’re just gonna ride this roller coaster as long as we can and see where it ends up.”

Jim and I turned to each other and smiled. These crazy, talented artists are really living in the Now!

And isn’t that the way life should be?