It’s Not Just Another Roadside Attraction : Rest stop: On I-5 sits California’s busiest freeway stopover, a wild and woolly oasis that serves 16 million a year.

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

But as the 23-year-old recently jostled his way in 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 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.

On a recent Sunday evening, 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 the Maine resident. “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 motorists.

On the shaded lawns, families sprawled on blankets, lazily watching as the multitude of men, women and children milled past.

There were sleek white limousines, smog-spewing buses, cars without engines, honking convertibles packed with sunburned French and Swedish tourists, and old station wagons carrying upside-down surfboards on their roofs so that the rudders resembled shark fins slashing through a sea of human congestion.

On the sidelines, some old clunkers sat idly in parking spaces--hoods up, oil dipsticks pulled--men gathered around, peering into yet another troubled engine.

And there were lines everywhere--not only at the restrooms but at the few public telephone booths and drinking fountains. By dark, the bumper-to-bumper jam of vehicles converging on the busy little spot had queued up clear to the adjacent 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 hunkered down in cars, converted old buses and campers--the time spent there can drag on for months, even years.

Each year, an estimated 16.6 million travelers find roadside refuge at Aliso Creek, a few shady acres along I-5, where it snakes through the desolate confines of the 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 crowded Disneyland each year.

State transportation officials say the rest area--with sections on both sides of the freeway--provides a valuable service to the throngs of travelers motoring between Los Angeles and San Diego.

But for the cops, preachers, illegal aliens, scroungers and down-and-outers who regularly pass through there, 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 Caltrans 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 it exists today.”

State officials whose agencies patrol the rest stop, however, say the name Aliso Creek spells nothing but trouble, and many would like to see it closed for good.

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 past the checkpoint.

Coyotes--or alien smugglers--routinely drop off scores of aliens at a time: anxious families who remain at the rest stop, sleeping out in the open, or in nearby bushes and 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 U.S. 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.”

Border Patrol agents aren’t the only ones nervously watching Aliso Creek. Undercover San Diego County sheriff’s deputies often patrol the restrooms and back bushes, where they say homosexual activity routinely takes place.

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

Sometimes, during the rare slow moments, they also check the supposedly nonprofit vendors who hawk their wares at Aliso Creek 24 hours a day--some without proper permits.

“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 patrols include Aliso Creek.

“The crime up there is incredible--murder, rapes, car theft, assaults, drug sales, homosexual activity, prostitution. 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.”

Despite all the bad-news stories, however, Aliso Creek continues to serve as a safe harbor for people like Bert Kaempffe. The out-of-work construction worker from Texas has camped out at Aliso Creek for the last four months with his wife and two children.

By day, as he points the family’s late-model station wagon toward San Diego in search of work, his wife stays behind in their cramped camper. Their 9-year-old son, Omar, plays in the grassy rest area, climbing trees, meeting other children from around the world, or just talking with other rest stop regulars--including the old man who has taught him the history of surrounding Camp Pendleton.

For the Kaempffes, the stay is a matter of economics.

“It sure as hell beats paying $35 a day staying at some campground,” said Kaempffe, 46, dressed in a wide-brimmed straw hat and blue jeans, as he collected 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,” he said. “And I feel safe here. It’s certainly better than parking on any city street.”

The Kaempffes illustrate the plight of a number of families who call Aliso Creek home. Many have detoured from life’s freeway for a time, passing their days at Aliso Creek as they gather the cash and initiative to get their acts back on the road again.

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

And there’s Walter Klock, a 65-year-old Philadelphian who spends his summers caddying at the La Costa resort, sleeping at Aliso Creek at night.

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

CHP Officer Ward said, however, that the homeless residents of Aliso Creek are a constant source of problems. Officers have tagged vehicles to be towed away only to find them relocated on the other rest area the next 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 traversing Camp Pendleton.

“It’s definitely the busiest rest area in California and possibly the entire American West,” Caltrans’ Ham said. “There’s no explaining it.

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