Thursday – 4/10 – Reno to Bishop
On my final night in good ole Reno, my sunset walk and a beer turned into getting pretty drunk with Sean at the Tap House, so here I am on Thursday morning packing the truck and trying to be my most organized in spite of a raging hangover on five hours sleep – how very dumb.
Anyway, hit the road 11-ish, stopped at the South Valleys Library to get some wildflower books, and we’re really off. Lunch at the always above-average Topaz Lake Casino coffee shop, with its panoramic view of Topaz Lake and it’s gut-buster food. Since the plan was to get to Bishop tonight I didn’t dawdle at any of the usual places, Walker Canyon, the hot springs around Bridgeport, Lee Vining, June Lake loop, or even Mammoth … the only stop was a half-hour nap at Conway Summit, that amazing overlook north of Mono Lake … on account of the hangover and all…
Bishop was unremarkable, except to remark that it seems that every motel in the world now has wi-fi. For something that was very rare 4 years ago, only high-end two years ago, it’s seems to be more ubiquitious than coffeemakers now. I am 3 for 3 so far and I am not staying in fancy places :)
Friday – 4/11 – Bishop to Victorville
Mexican breakfast at the Bishop Grill, that’s the way to start the day. I looked for the alleged Keough Hot Springs, but somehow missed the turnoff. Gee I thought there would be a sign or something. Maybe on the way back.
I’ve covered Reno to Bishop many times over the last few years, but haven’t gone any further south than Bishop, thus sadly depriving myself of Big Pine, Independence and Lone Pine. I had all day to do a four hour drive, so I did my best to dawdle meaningfully at each one, while keeping on schedule of course.
– Big Pine is the gateway to the very old Bristlecone Pine forest in the White Mountains (the mountains looking fine on your left when the tallest part of the Sierras is looming to your right).
– Independence has a excellent county courthouse, which is semi-famous for being designed by someone famous.
— Manzanar Internment Camp is nearby, a very depressing place.
— Mt Whitney Fishery, which has lovely shaded grounds and a cool old fieldstone fishery building.
– Lone Pine is the gateway to Death Valley, and is right in front of the Alabama Hills, where tons of those old ‘big hat’ westerns were filmed. The Gene Autry series, John Wayne movies. In fact they are the hills of Pakistan in one old movie about the Khyber Pass.
South of Lone Pine it gets seriously desolate. Starting with dry Owens Lake, which used to be a real lake until LA ripped off all its water back in the 20’s (remember the movie Chinatown?). The local towns here sued LA in the 80’s about the dust from the lakebed and won(!), so now there are sprinklers running across it to keep it damp enough to keep the dust down – wierd.
One more stop today, which was Fossil Falls, about 20 miles south of Lone Pine. The whole valley is solid lava beds forever, and back when the last ice age was melting this was the outflow of a glacial lake and a pretty dramatic waterfall. The basalt is worn and weathered to fantastic shapes in this dry canyon where the waterfall was, and it was cool to stop driving and soak up the feel of the place from outside the truck, get lost in the trackless lava beds on the way back.
Saturday – 4/12 – Victorville to Irvine – Zenographics Party
Victorville seems ugly and altogether unappealing as one rockets past it on the freeway, but looking back, it was as user-friendly and pleasant as ever I could hope it to be as a place to spend one night going from here to there. I lucked into a very friendly little local breakfast place while heading to the soulless chain breakfast place I’d seen last night, so I would call it a good morning. Good thing I started well, because the closer I got to the coast, the more sucky became the freeway system. Leaving the desert by going over the Cajon Pass on I-15 was really cool – a huge freeway blasting through some pretty big mountains. Then things started sucking on and off all the day to the coast. Did I mention that this is the start of a two day record heat wave? Being stuck on the 59 in a meaningless Saturday afternoon traffic jam is even less delightful when it is suddenly 90 degrees in April.
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