I should get out in the spring more often

May seemed like a good time to get away and into nature while it is green and fresh.  I did not leave last week because Riverfest was happening and there were many good bands playing in the park, but now I’m making a break for it. I thought I was leaving on Wednesday, but suddenly sushi happened! There’s a new sushi place in my ‘hood and they have a lunch all-you-can-eat special.  I had tagged along with the Jungle kids to it one other time and quite enjoyed it. I thought they would be piling into cars to drive somewhere for sushi, and that did not interest me. But when I found out they were walking to the Reef, a new place next to the Ole Bridge Pub a mere 300 yards away, well I was down with doing that!  Since that first time, I’ve nagged them to keep me in the loop if they do another group migration to the Reef, and as fate would have it, on that Wednesday morning, as I was packing and about 40 minutes from leaving, I got the “sushi happenin!” text!

I thought I could have it all!  I could do the fish and conversation thing and still hit the road a couple of hours later than planned. But … we didn’t get our sushi quorum till 1pm, and what with appetizers and dessert we finished around 3pm.  So, stuffed and sleepy and too late to get anywhere before sunset, I went home, took a giant dump and fell asleep and by default moved all my plans back a day.  Do fish and rice make tryptophan?  Because I felt like I’d just had Thanksgiving dinner!

Thursday (May 16)

So, here I am on Thursday, planning to execute exactly the day I was going to do yesterday, except a day later and a little more efficiently because of the practice I got yesterday :)  It’s overcast and windy and rather gloomy, making it hard to motivate to leave my warm house to go camping. But surprise! when I did get going, the clouds and interesting weather made it an extra fun day to be out and about! As per yesterday’s plan, first stop was biscuits and gravy at the Wet Hen.  The next stop was to be Trader Joe’s but I decided it failed Occam’s Razor, that is to say it was not a necessary stop. The next stop WAS deemed to be necessary – the Reno AAA office to freshen my map collection. Then finally I was on the road for real.  Even to a true map lover like me, I am sad to say that the AAA seems less useful with every passing year.

I love the new I-580 to Carson.  This is the first time I’ve driven it since I came to the grand pre-opening.  Very nicely implemented, pretty, scenic, aesthetically pleasing, convenient and fast! The drive was utterly uneventful until Gardnerville.  The speed limit there is a frustrating 25 mph. I was chugging cluelessly along when I noticed that next to me was a G-ville sheriff, and that he’d just turned on his “pull over” lights. But not for me! He had singled out the pickup next to me. When you don’t even know there’s a patrol car on the road with you and suddenly he’s there but he pulls over the next guy, then you know that you are living right that day! I don’t wish to overdraw my karma account, so I’m extra careful until Minden is behind me and we’re back to 55 mph.

Since I’ve already eaten I will not be stopping at the Topaz Lake Casino, although I always like it when I do.  I’m waved through the California produce checkpoint, then onward to cruise the lovely little towns of the lovely Antelope Valley, then make a pit stop at the rest area Walker Canyon, another of my beloved places.

[aside]It’s a super beautiful day – dramatic clouds, green hills.  It’s so perfect I get to wondering why I don’t do trips in the spring more often. I’ve always been an autumn guy (fall guy doesn’t sound right :), but really, spring has a lot to recommend it.  Everything’s fresh and green, there’e even a few flowers still out.  Instead of the bright yellow aspens of October there’s the bright green of little budding leaves.  Not as dramatic, but still pretty awesome  The little streams are overflowing with snowmelt.  Really it’s all pretty sweet, so what’e my problem? I definitely prefer the edges of everyday life, the areas of maximim change.  Sunrise and sunset are by far the most interesting parts of a day.  Spring and Fall are the best seasons of a year.  Further, I seem to prefer the trailing over the leading edges. Sunrise, the leading edge of a day, simply happens too early for me.  Also, sunset just makes more sense: at sunset, you enjoy the climactic event of the day, then the day is done. The flow just isn’t right to enjoy the climactic event of the day at sunrise … then start the day.

For a year, no such excuse, I’m around for the spring but I don’t seem to really internalize the idea that winter is really over until it’s summer.  I’ve always had this odd pattern of not really getting into summer things like swimming until summer is almost gone. Quite consistently I don’t become a regular swimmer – in the Truckee in Reno or the Pacific in Mill Valley – until late August or early September.  I enjoy it for about a month, then boom! cold weather starts and it’s over for the year.  Not sure what this has to do with anything, but there you have it!

All this ruminating on the nature of life gets me to Bridgeport and the bumpy little stretch of dirt road that takes one to Travertime Hot Springs. At the downstream, cooler end of the springs are the usual foreigners.  They seemed jumpy and afraid of eye contact and without the usual euro-cool. Around the corner at the hot end of the springs I see why.  There was a foursome of loud, slightly whacked-out locals, who scared me too on first sight. The euros soon scuttled away, leaving just me and two sketchy dudes and their even sketchier momma (the bad apples not falling far from the tree) and a sweet 50-ish hottie who turned out to be a local schoolteacher that somehow got sucked into their shitshow.

The dudes had painted “warpaint” on their faces with the hot springs mud.  That woulda been ok, except that under that temporary mud were permanent teardrop tattoos around their eyes, which I associate with prison gangs. I was appropriately frightened by them. However we got along just fine. I think they were basically nice guys with scary prison tattoos. They had the bad luck to be born to a monumental fuck-up of a mother and were just trying to make the best of it. Eventually they left, so I had the primo spot to myself for a while. Then a nice couple from SF came, then I left so I could didn’t have to choose a campsite in the dark.

In my zoned-out condition I took it easy on the bumps down the hill, drove back through Bridgeport, took the left and made the beautiful drive across the wide valley to Twin Lakes Road, took the right past Doc’s Place and up the gravel road with the million-dollar view across the valley to my perfect spot on the hill above Buckeye Creek.

Friday

I slept poorly.  I often do first night out.  Over the first few days sleep deprivation works its magic and I fall into a regular sleep pattern.  This particular night after passing out at ten I was pleased to be awake and blogging when the sun came up. I happened to have parked at a pretty good angle to enjoy the sunrise … if only my windows weren’t so dirty.  Fall back asleep til 10:30-ish and I’m good to go!  Today that means putting on my still dampish swimming trunks and heading down the hill to Buckeye Hot Springs for the other great local hot springs adventure.

Camping on the little mesa means you’re on the wrong side of Buckeye Creek, so there is a little creek-fording adventure to take the straight-line route to the hot springs.  Last summer that was no big deal, but today it was pretty daunting.  It’s not just the volume of water, it’s that the water is soooo f—ing fast and cold!  My feet can handle it pretty well, but when i had to plunge my arm in to grab a rock to stabilize myself, my arm hurt bad after like five seconds.  That water really could kill you pretty quickly if something went wrong.

Anyway, there was an OG hanging at the pool.  He was sort of soaking, but mostly he was smoking Camels and drinking Miller High Life and chillin’ on a rock.  I was 1/4 the way across the creek and in trouble when he signaled me that I should cross about 40 yards upstream, where it was shallower and more manageable.  Glad he was there, because I wasn’t going to make it at where I was. It was the narrowest spot, but too swift and too deep (duh). The hot springs were rockin’ when I got there.  They are much hotter water than at Travertine.  I really prefer the setting also. There you are, soaking in very hot, still water, even under the little cave behind the hot little waterfall if you wish, while two feet away the very busy and very cold, fast water rushes by. Really the best!  Eventually it was time for the painful trip back across Buckeye Creek, and the breathless (7,500′!) slog back up the hill, and I feel like I’ve had quite a morning! I hang till one-ish just diggin the spot, then do the ridiculously scenic drive back down the dirt road past Doc’s Place and across the wide valley back to Bridgeport.

Turns out I should’ve gotten breakfast at the likely-looking place in Bridgeport.  Without the feeling of gnawing hunger I would’ve enjoyed the Mono Lake experience more. Despite the hunger I do the June Lake Loop and eventually I do get to Mammoth – too late for the breakfast place I was aiming for, but coffee and a pastry (and wifi) at Looney’s fixed everything. I now had the fortitude to visit the supermarket.  I’ll be eating Safeway-well tonight! The drive to Bishop was just fine.  I flirted with the idea of heading up the canyon at Tom’s Place, but after a couple of miles I turned back.  I have the canyon above Bishop in my plan, and right now it seems way more exciting than the canyon I’m headed up, so I punt.

So here I am, on a lovely little aspen-lined creek a few miles above Bishop.  You can go even farther up either fork in the road to end up at a campground near a lake, but Four Jefferies Campground is a nice compromise – a nice spot without another 8-10 miles of driving straight up. It’s in the valley below the fork in the road, on the far side of a big-ass moraine which cuts the valley in two. It’s open and pretty.  The Forest Service in it’s Republican-induced wisdom, subcontracts the management of many of their campgrounds to private companies, who usually do a much worse job than the Forest Service. And as such campgrounds often do, it has a annoying corporate style that bugs me. Site #92 is at the downhill end across from the bathroom with running water!

Saturday

My site has the negative feature that I’m right there on display to everyone walking to the bathroom – a little annoying on a bright and sunny morning with no cover … oh well.  I putter around till eleven.  I pull around the corner and try to fill my annoying water tank at the spigot.

Then it’s time to leave this canyon – coast down the hill to BIshop, where I am looking forward to the mexican breakfast I’ve gotten a couple of times before.  La Ranchita is the name of the place turns out.  It’s right next door to another mex place, just to keep it confusing.  The Bishop store of the Looney Beans Roastery that I went to in Mammoth is a block away, so I got the brilliant idea to have water with my chorizo and eggs and beans, then have a quality coffee experience at Looney’s afterwards.  The meal part worked great, but the coffee part was a FAIL.  Unlike Mammoth, these guys to not do refills ($1 to fill an 8 oz cup?!?!), and besides, the coffee tasted awful.  Oh well, they did at least have wifi.  I did not dig my Looney’s experience.

Press onward down ole familiar 395, through Big Pine, then get diesel at the always bargain-y Fort Independence station, then the town of Independence, to Lone Pine, where I took another swing at the coffee thing, at the very pleasant place downtown.  This worked much better.  I even brought my laptop in, for my first laptop connectivity since I left Reno.  Very satisfying. One more stop, at the fancy Visitors Center where SR 136 leaves 395 to head to Death Valley.  I really like that Vis Cen, it has nice exhibits and an awesome relief map of most of California and southern Nevada.  I’m a total sucker for a good relief map! Then a leisurely cruise to Panamint Springs, where I plan to actually camp after just passing by so many times.