Part 1: The Book
When: Saturday, November 26, 2005
Where: Above the word LOVE on Salvation Mountain, Niland, CA
How: Kris gave me Part 2 of a book called “kris+holly”
Answer: No…just kidding…yes! (Kris later told me that the “no” was not very convincing.)
The bright colored letters, L-O-V-E, are the first things I noticed as we pulled Kris’s green truck up to the edge of Leonard Knight’s property. “Welcome…” the sign near our truck read.
It was a few days after Thanksgiving, and Kris had just picked me up from the airport the night before on my way home from the Bay Area. We talked about spending our Saturday on the road, exploring towns I had never seen, and seeing this “Salvation Mountain” that Kris had been to a few years before.
I had never been past Escondido, so Ramona, Julian, and the desert were all new to me. We head out towards the Salton Sea, and came upon a tiny, almost vacant looking town called Niland. Off in the distance, we could see an area of the bluffs that stood out from the rest. It is painted with white and green backgrounds, and splattered with a multitude of vibrant colors.
We found our way out to the mountain, that Kris told me he had slept on a few years back, just above the word “love.” Leonard is a small man, in his 70s, that came upon Niland when his truck broke down. He decided to stay there, and paint messages about God’s love on a mountain. He has been there for 20 something years. Leonard was extremely excited about the two vivid colors of paint that Kris brought for him.
We toured the place, and then climbed to the top. While sitting on a rock, enjoying the warm, desert sun, Kris pulled a box from his backpack. I recognized the silver and white packaging with the apple logo from the book he had given me on Valentine’s Day of this year. That book was called “kris+holly…so far.”
He pulled this book out, and I saw our pictures on the cover. This time it said, “kris+holly…so good.” I had no idea that a proposal was coming, but at this point, the thought crossed my mind. We flipped through the pages, and laughed and smiled together as the book reminded us of all the fun times we’ve shared together so far.
Kris wrote about how when he was in China, he “had ample time to ponder whether I really wanted to marry this Holly girl.” The next page says only, “I decided I did.” On the other side of the spread, there is an image of a giant ring, with words below it that read, “Will you marry me?” There are two boxes at the bottom of the page – one for “yes” and one for “no”. And with perfect timing, Kris knelt down in the dirt, pulled out a sharpie and asked me himself.
I giggled and said “no” thinking that because of the agony of waiting that I had to go through for months, I could give him anxiety for a few seconds. But then I quickly added…”yes!” He told me later that the “no” did not sound very convincing, especially with the big smile on my face.
Download kris+holly …so good
low resolution PDF [2MB]
high resolution PDF [79MB]
