Outlanders

Sometimes, scattered deep in the wastelands of Southern California, I’ll stumble upon a random descanso in the middle of nowhere, far off the beaten paths, hidden in some nondescript corner of a back country fire road, or aside a creek bed in the deep mountains, or amidst the desolation of emptied barrens, or behind a trash dumpster in a dark alley of the Gaslamp District in San Diego. Marking the passage of a soul is a global, universal compulsion, I daresay, and humans find a way to do it no matter where they live or how much resources they have available to them.

I’ve come across a good number of these sudden disturbances in my expectations of civilization, and indeed, many of these descansos featured in this segment were smack dab outta the blue surprises, given their remote locales or topographical positions. I don’t seem to have too many photos of the more urban constructions I’ve discovered, in the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, despite having seen many thereabouts in one form or another.

Before I tender my small collection of outland descansos below, I wanted to discuss a Southern California-specific urban myth I’d be remiss in not mentioning, concerning ‘outlier’ type memorials in my redneck of the woods.

Disney enthusiasts already well know that Disneyland, located in the heart of SoCal in Anaheim, has always boasted a fair amount of totemic homages to death and the passing of souls. One could make a strong argument Walt’s Imagineers were perhaps obsessed with incorporating our eons-old human fascination with the worlds that lie between life and death into their rides and attractions.

The Haunted Mansion is the most notable testament, of course. It hosts no less than two pet cemeteries and six human graveyards, all of them rendered in Boot Hill style silliness. About a year back, Disney announced that the ride would offer 20 spots for buyers who wanted their remains to be permanently interred on the venerable Disney ride, in one of the ride’s outside graveyards easily seen from the queue lines. For the paltry sum of 100k per plot, 20 folks scooped up that scarce commodity as soon as it went on sale, you might imagine, and many thousands of folks illegally dump cremains while riding that ride, per the last wishes of Haunted Mansion aficionados and against strict Disney health codes.

Disneyland is chock full of deathly homage, from the skeletons of the Caribbean pirates (yep, there’s still a real human skull over the pirate’s headboard) to the pile of human skulls on the Jungle Cruise. There was the churchyard cemetery of Rainbow Ridge on the old Mine Train ride (ask your grandparents, Gen Z) that eventually morphed into the Thunder Mountain backdrop. There was, briefly, a ‘Fort Wilderness’ graveyard, there was Alice’s Churchyard in Storybook Land, there was a cluster of tombstones around the vulture’s tree on the America Sings attraction, and there have been no less than three graveyards on Tom Sawyer’s Island.

According to a number of former associates who worked at Disneyland at one point or another in their lifetimes, there’s more than one observable legit style descanso embedded somewhere in the Disneyland landscape, only notable to those looking for them, per allowance and permit of Disney management, all of which are small constructs honoring former employees of the park. Depending on who I’m talking to, there’s purportedly a few in each sector of the park, but I have yet to see any photographic evidence. I’ve heard tales of a half-submerged cross in the bayou ‘swamps’ of the Pirates ride near the restaurant…a small Mayan totem in the Indiana Jones ride…a cross hidden by ‘jungle growth’ somewhere in the Swiss Family tree house…a Celtic cross inside Snow White’s castle…a number of hide-in-plain-sight totems along the flume passage of It’s a Small World. The one I’ve heard the most about is a small, snow-covered cross in the tunnels of the Matterhorn. I have yet to glimpse it, but I don’t go to Disneyland much these days, either. I thought it interesting even in our most vaunted entertainment space of the entire United States, folks find a way to commemorate their loved ones in a public fashion, so that others might briefly consider that decedent and their separate yet connected journey from our own.

This first random, unmarked descanso, struck alongside the winding route of Highway 150 between Carpinteria and Ojai, I first mistook for some kind of utility pole or gas line conduit, but upon examination up the hillside from the road, I could not determine whether it might be a marker for underground utilities or if it was indeed erected in the context as it appeared. I have to admit, I could go either way on this one, but I’m gonna include it anyway.

This next one is also questionably utility-line adjacent, though for what purpose a couple of thick, cross-barred pipes might serve outside of a rather sturdy marker for underground lines, eludes my admittedly limited knowledge of highway subterranean infrastructures. It was perched in the meridian of the northbound sector of the four-lane Old Highway 101, near Carlsbad in north county San Diego.

These two below were erected on the northeast side of the San Gorgino Wind Farms near Palm Springs, California. I did not disturb the arrangements so that I might suss out the decedents’ names. It’s a tough place to construct a descanso. You diehard roadies might recall one of our first segments in this column commemorating a Cowboys fan named Paco, and how that impressive shrine was also situated thereabouts. The wind on that stretch of Indian Canyon Drive is near constant, due to the turbine farm’s proximity to a bottleneck pass through which Interstate 10 passes. San Gorgino sucks in all that east basin Los Angeles smoggy airstream every day, in great, gusting, sandy gales. Descansos appear frequently on this westbound segment of Indian Canyon, but they don’t last long. The exposure is just too robust.

Here’s an interesting one, likely not a proper descanso but a testament of faith from a private property owner whose lands were adjacent to the northbound 101, near the junction to east 166. I had to shoot it from afar, just past the Santa Maria River bridge. It’s a big’un. I’ve seen plenty of these types of large cross statues in my travels, erected on private lands apparently to spread the ‘word.’ I’ve extolled plenty of thoughts about my takes on the good book and all its subsidiary followings over in The Bear and the Star.

This last one was the only memoriam I came upon just last week when I took the notorious 166 highway from Santa Maria over to Bakersfield. I expected to see many, many more. 166 is a legit blood alley, infamous for accidents due to its soft shoulders, hairy turns, mountainous oil field terrain, and high speed travelers from the central valley. But I didn’t see any at all, save for this large, unmarked one with a single battered wreath with no visible epithet, set on private property. It was behind the border fence and that’s probably the reason Cal Trans hadn’t cleared it, because I think I took that road not long after a mandated roadside cleanup. Usually 166 is littered with descansos, perhaps not as many as its sister road 62 in Yucca Valley, but often as many as Pearblossom in Lancaster.

Random, nondescript outliers are no less heavy with the weight of soul than tended, well-appointed ones…same is true in life, by the by: the death of an unknown John Doe drifting soul is no less integral and majestic to the universe than the death of Elvis or presidents or anyone else.

It reminds me to remind all of you. despite appearances or subjective determinations, nobody is truly anonymous.

Nobody is truly alone.

Every life matters, be it that of an unknown pauper or an infamous celebrity.

How do I know this?

:)

Wait a while.