Freeway Carnival : I-5 Rest Stop Is a Sideshow That Some Want to Close

Vernon Roderick had always considered himself a well-seasoned traveler, having motored wind-swept interstates and broken bread at highway rest stops from Maine to Montana.

But, as the 23-year-old recently jostled his way through the crush of fellow sojourners at a freeway respite just north of Oceanside, he could only shake his head, admitting that he had never--ever--witnessed anything like this.

By chance, Roderick had found himself smack-dab in the middle of California’s busiest freeway rest stop, what could well be the wildest, woolliest, freeway oasis in the whole Western United States.

Last Sunday night, Roderick blinked his eyes in disbelief as the Aliso Creek rest area on Interstate 5 revved its engines into full summertime gear.

“Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people at one rest stop in all my life,” said Roderick, a resident of Maine. “I just wanted to take a break from the traffic, and I come upon this. Whoa, what a trip! This place isn’t a rest stop, it’s a three-ring circus.”

Within a few feet of the public restrooms and the “You Are Here” informational maps sat half a dozen portable food trucks selling soft drinks, snacks and plastic lizards-on-a-stick to hundreds of Spanish-speaking motorists who had arrived in pickups and battered old cars.

On the shaded lawns, whole families sprawled on blankets, lazily watching as the multitude of men, women and children milled past, as though contemplating some crowded cross-cultural carnival.

There were sleek white limousines, exhaust-spewing buses, cars without engines, honking convertibles packed with sunburned French and Swedish tourists, old station wagons carrying upside-down surfboards whose rudders slashed like shark fins through a sea of human congestion.

On the sidelines, a few clunkers sat idly in their parking spaces, hoods up, dipsticks pulled, as men gathered around and peered into the abyss of yet another troubled engine.

And, everywhere, lines--not only at the restrooms but at the few public phones and drinking fountains. By dark, the bumper-to-bumper jam of vehicles converging on the busy little spot had queued up clear to the freeway.

For many, the stay at Aliso Creek would last 15 minutes or less. For others--those among the growing number of full-time rest stop residents who hunker down in cars, converted old buses and campers--it could drag on for months, even years.

Each year, an estimated 16.6 million travelers find roadside refuge at Aliso Creek, a few shady acres straddling both sides of I-5 where the freeway snakes through the desolate confines of the Joseph H. Pendleton Marine base.

That’s more than four times the number of people who visited Sea World in 1989, or about as many tourists as pack into Disneyland each year.

State transportation officials say the rest area provides a valuable service to the throngs of travelers motoring between California’s two biggest metropolitan areas, Los Angeles and San Diego.

For the cops, preachers, illegal aliens, scroungers and down-and-outers who regularly pass through, however, Aliso Creek has become something more. To them, it’s known as the freakiest sideshow of Southern California’s hectic freeway culture--the rest stop that never sleeps.

“This is the place where society meets,” said Tom Ham, a California Department of Transportation landscape architect who supervises roadside design and improvements. “It’s a microcosm of our culture, a real good cross-section of the social strata as they exist today.”

As one homeless man put it: “Nobody has airs here. I’ve seen everything from Russians to high-class rollers to illegal Mexicans here. It’s hard to get uppity when you’re all using the same restroom.”

But state agencies that regularly patrol the rest stop say the name Aliso Creek spells nothing but trouble.

U. S. Border Patrol officials say the area--about a dozen miles south of the San Onofre immigration checkpoint--serves as a hide-out for hundreds of undocumented aliens who each day await their chance to sneak north.

Coyotes--or smugglers of the aliens--routinely drop off scores of them at a time, anxious families who remain at the rest stop, sleeping out in the open, in nearby bushes or in ravines until a scout returns with word that the coast is clear.

“We definitely see it as a problem area,” said Ted Swofford, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in San Diego. “It’s the place where aliens and their smugglers and scouts can almost sit and watch our operation” at the checkpoint.

“And they’re not only smuggling aliens. Crooks are crooks. They’re also smuggling drugs through that place, right under the noses of the tourists who stop there,” Swofford said.

Border Patrol agents aren’t the only ones nervously watching Aliso Creek. Undercover deputies from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department routinely patrol the restrooms and bushes, where, they say, homosexuals illegally seek liaisons.

Since an incident four years ago in which a woman’s dismembered body was found strewn about a trash bin and nearby ravine, the California Highway Patrol has also kept a closer eye on the rest stop.

Sometimes, during the rare slow moments, officers also monitor the vendors--who are ostensibly nonprofit--who hawk their wares 24 hours a day, some without proper permits.

In interviews, officials from several state agencies said they would like to see Aliso Creek closed for good. Some claim it doesn’t meet a state requirement of being at least half an hour’s drive from any populated area. In any event, they say, the rest stop really isn’t necessary.

“I don’t really know what its purpose is, but I’ll tell you one thing: It’s a headache for everybody, even the Marine Corps. We’d all like to see it close down,” said CHP Officer Brian Ward, whose patrol includes Aliso Creek.

“The crime up there is incredible--murder, rapes, car theft, assaults, drug sales, homosexual activity, prostitution,” he said. “Some people might think it’s a safe environment, a nice place to stop for lunch. But it sure scares the hell out of me.”

The scene at Aliso Creek--with its illicit activities and undercover patrols--can sometimes be almost comical in its confusion, according to one Caltrans official who asked not to be identified.

“One day not long ago, the Border Patrol, CHP and Sheriff’s Department all had undercover sting operations going on up there without the other one knowing about it,” the official said. “You couldn’t tell the actors from the players. I was afraid someone was going to get shot.”

All that aside, Aliso Creek continues to serve as a harbor for people such as Bert Kaempffe. The unemployed construction worker from Texas has camped out there for the past four months with his wife and two children.

By day, he points the family’s late-model station wagon toward San Diego in search of work, and his Spanish-speaking wife stays behind in their cramped camper, parked a few spots from the public restrooms on the west side of the freeway.

Omar, Kaempffe’s bright 9-year-old son, plays in the grassy rest area, climbing trees, meeting other children from around the world and talking with other regulars, including the old man who has taught him the history of surrounding Camp Pendleton.

The Kaempffes have spent summers holed up at Aliso Creek for the past 10 years. For them, it’s a matter of economics.

“It sure as hell beats paying $35 a day staying at some campground,” said the 46-year-old Kaempffe, dressed in a wide-brimmed straw hat and blue jeans and collecting bottles and cans around the site to earn extra cash.

He stood up on a nearby picnic table and pointed toward the ocean. “It’s a good place with a nice ocean breeze. And I feel safe here. It’s certainly better than parking on any city street.”

Indeed, a number of families call the Aliso Creek rest stop home. Many have detoured from life’s freeway for a time, passing their days there while gathering the cash and initiative to get back on the road.

Some, characters like Rabbit and his wife, Kathy, have even set up illicit businesses. For two years, the two have lived in a camper at the rest stop with their three dogs. For a fee, Rabbit repairs broken-down cars while Kathy panhandles outside the restrooms, holding a “Cash needed for gas” sign.

There’s Walter Klock, a 65-year-old Philadelphian who spends his summer days caddying at the La Costa resort, his nights sleeping at Aliso Creek.

“This place is just a safe haven for overnight stops, no matter how long you stay,” Klock said, sitting on a picnic table as though it were his front porch. “By now, I feel as though these people are my neighbors.”

A few parking spots away are Jim and Virginia Henderson, who have lived there for most of the summer in a converted bus with their seven cats. Jim, a 63-year-old retiree, spends most of his days under the shade of the rest stop’s sycamore trees.

Virginia, 30 years his junior, just landed a waitress job in Oceanside. Eventually, she wants to become a police officer.

“I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life on this bus,” she said. “We’re trying to get our lives back in order. But some of these patrolmen won’t let us live in peace. They’re constantly hassling us, trying to move us on down the highway.”

Caltrans officials say they aren’t as bothered by the full-time residents as perhaps the CHP is. “We’ve never had any problems with the people living out there,” said Tom Ham. “They mostly stay to themselves and, if anything, help out by picking up the bottles and cans. We’ve even heard of some turning in lost wallets.”

But CHP Officer Ward said the homeless residents of Aliso Creek are a constant source of problems. Officers have tagged vehicles to be towed, only to find them relocated to the other side of the freeway the following day.

“It’s like a shell game out there,” he said. “When you tag a car, you have to wait 72 hours before you can tow it away. But you go back the next day and find the vehicle at the rest stop on the opposite side of the freeway.

“And we’re often talking about cars without engines. So you just tag it again. It’s like saying, ‘Your move, pal.’ ”

Caltrans officials say that, no matter how many complaints they receive about Aliso Creek, the rest area continues to be a hugely popular stopping point for motorists.

“It’s definitely the busiest rest area in California, and possibly the entire American West,” Ham said. “There’s no explaining it. It’s only 7 miles north of Oceanside and about a dozen miles south of San Clemente.

“Most rest areas are much more far removed. But people just keep stopping at this one, that’s why we keep it open,” he said. “It serves a tremendous need out there. I mean, 16 million people a year--that’s a lot of toilets flushing.”

Although officials have trimmed back the bushes where undocumented aliens and homosexuals hide and drug deals go down, there is one people magnet they have been unable to do anything about. The mobile food vendors--known as “roach coaches” to the rest stop regulars--continue to draw hungry travelers as well as offer food to the illegals moving north.

“The rest area was never supposed to have these types of places--they just evolved out there,” Ham said. “And they’re not conducive to what we want to do at Aliso Creek.”

Two years ago, Caltrans officials announced that only two vendors could work the rest stop at a time. The agency was eventually sued, and a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled this summer that the food trucks could remain until the case was settled in court.

The catch is that the supposedly nonprofit vendors cannot sell alcohol or cigarettes and are required by Caltrans to offer free food to people who can’t afford to pay for it.

“You ever gone a few days without eating?” asked Gary Nordem, who tends a food truck by day and sleeps on a nearby bench at night. “Well, I’ve been homeless for a month now and, brother, I don’t like it. I’ll give a handout to anyone who asks for it.”

Although several San Diego-area religious denominations operating vending outlets at Aliso Creek said they routinely give away food, both Caltrans officials and rest stop regulars questioned that claim.

“That’s bull; they don’t give anything away,” said Virginia Henderson. “Sometimes, I don’t even have enough money for a cup of coffee, and not one of those stingy vendors would even offer me that.”

Next year, Caltrans officials say, a dozen vending machines serviced by the California Industries for the Blind will be installed on both sides of the freeway.

“There’s going to be some friction out there, you can bet on it,” Ham said. “There’s just going to be more people to slice up the same pie.”

That’s not what worries Moshen Meschi--it’s losing the business of the Mexican immigrants. The vendor, who said he operates for profit at Aliso Creek, says he can make $1,100 on a good weekend day--most of it from illegal aliens.

“More than 75% of my business is from the Mexicans,” he said. “Without them, we’d have to close up shop. The American tourists just don’t spend that kind of cash.”

Not far away, meanwhile, Marine Lance Cpl. Billy Williams was involved in the kind of chase that could someday put Meschi and the other Aliso Creek vendors in the unemployment lines.

Shortly after dark, he walked through the men’s restroom, searching for a pair of suspected illegal aliens who had ducked through a fence onto Camp Pendleton. (Border Patrol officials say most illegals wait at Aliso Creek until their smugglers return to pick them up; others, however, cross onto the Marine base in an attempt to walk past the checkpoint.)

Williams, who patrols the camp for animal poachers, often chases wayward aliens into the makeshift hooches that dot the nearby ravine, following a narrow path he likens to the Ho Chi Min Trail, within earshot of the hissing freeway.

The Arkansas native often stares in amazement as he walks through the busy rest stop. In the darkness, watching the endless parade of headlights, he compared the place to “a drive-in movie that can fit a million cars.”

Come nightfall, Williams feels an added tension at Aliso Creek. Everyone knows that Border Patrol agents could come swooping in at any moment. He’s watched 100 heads jerk in unison at the innocent backfire of a car engine, and he’s heard the stories of the fights that have broken out when an alien smuggler--waiting for a call from one of his scouts--decides a tourist has tied up one of the telephones for too long.

After a while, regulars say, Aliso Creek has a way of playing with your mind.

After two years of looking the other way from the round-the-clock weirdness--harangued by homosexuals, pestered by panhandlers--Tom Clarke has decided to just steer clear of the phone.

“The telephone rings at all hours of the day and night, and I used to answer it,” recalled the Encinitas artist and resident, who sells his homemade necklaces from a blanket near the restroom entrance.

“Most times, it was this guy down in Oceanside looking for somebody to invite down to his house. But he just got too weird.

“Now, I just don’t answer the phone anymore. I just let it ring and ring.”