Guardian Lions of Route 66 (Foo Dogs) – Amboy, California

Nobody Knows Who Left Them Here

On a long, mostly empty stretch of historic Route 66 near Amboy, California, two marble statues stand in the Mojave Desert roughly 500 feet off the road, spaced a quarter mile apart. They are known variously as the Guardian Lions, the Foo Dogs, or simply the statues. They are each about five feet tall, set on cinder blocks, and facing the highway. There are no signs. No plaques. No official explanation of any kind.

The earliest documented sightings point to sometime around 2013. No one has come forward to claim them or explain how they got there, which is a considerable logistical question given the weight of marble and the remoteness of the location. Whoever placed them here did so deliberately and then disappeared entirely from the story.

Foo Dogs, or guardian lions, are a fixture of Chinese architecture and culture. They are always placed in pairs, a male with one foot resting on a ball representing yang, and a female with her paw on a cub representing yin. The tradition is one of protection and guardianship, and the placement here along a highway that once carried travelers across an entire continent is either deeply intentional or a remarkable coincidence. No one can say which.

One of the statues was damaged in 2016 and temporarily removed. Both were present when I visited in January 2020. Visitors have turned the site into something of a small roadside shrine, leaving tokens, trinkets, shoes, jewelry, and other offerings at the base of each lion. There are also notebooks, regularly replaced, where travelers write entries. The printed records of older entries are kept alongside the current book, so the accumulated story of everyone who has stopped here is preserved, even if the origin of the statues themselves is not.

Know Before You Go

• Region: American Southwest / Mojave Desert / Historic Route 66
• Location: Near Amboy, California on Historic Route 66, approximately 500 feet off the road
• Coordinates: 34.5597° N, 115.7380° W
• Cost: Free
• Hours: Open at all times
• Managed By: Unmanaged / public land
• Attraction Type: Roadside Attraction / Roadside Mystery

The statues sit off the highway on open desert terrain. There is no marked parking area but the shoulder is wide enough to pull off safely. The walk out is short and flat. Bring water regardless of the time of year, this is the Mojave. While you are in the area, Amboy Crater and Roy’s Motel and Cafe are both within a few miles and worth adding to the stop.

My Visit

I was driving through in January 2020, working my way across a stretch of Route 66 that most people skip. The Mojave in January has a particular kind of quiet to it. Cold mornings, clear light, nothing moving for miles. You can cover a lot of ground out here without seeing much that wants to be seen.

I almost missed the turn. A small sign or marker, I do not even remember which, pointed out toward the desert. I pulled over and walked out to the first statue. Then the second. The ground around each one was covered in objects left by other travelers. Shoes. Coins. Plastic figurines. A notebook open to a recent entry with a printed packet of older ones underneath it. I flipped through a few pages.

People write to the lions the way you might write to something that is listening. Safe travels. Gratitude for making it this far. Small hopes for the road ahead. I do not know if that was the intention of whoever placed them here, but it is what the place has become.

I left something. I don’t remember what.

Worth the Stop

It takes about ten minutes to walk out to both statues and back. Pull over anyway. Something genuinely unexplained is standing out here in the Mojave, and it has quietly become a place where strangers leave pieces of their journeys. You will not find that very many places on Route 66 or anywhere else.