On the road again!

April 15, 2015

Alabama Hills to Sacramento

Unfortunately, we decided to leave the Alabama Hills as it was just too windy to do anything or go anywhere. It’s a beautiful spot, but from what I gather … it’s almost always windy.

We headed north again to a town called Bishop where we stayed in a commercial campground to fill up our water, dump our holding tanks, provision ourselves with groceries and clean the sand and grit off of EVERYTHING in the mo-ho. The town is a fair size, but after walking around we decided there was nothing much to amuse us … no little shops worth checking out … but a lot of bars and saloons (wonder why??).

We had an early dinner of tacos and watched a movie, and an early bedtime.

April 16, 2015

Up early yet again – packed up and headed north and west.

Along the way we stopped in to the Manzanar National Historic Site – which was one of the Japanese internment camps from WW2. There isn’t much there anymore of the buildings, but we watched a very moving film on the site and some of the propaganda leading up to the Japanese internment. The government basically stole all their money, land, possessions all ‘for their own good’. There were pictures, diaries, paintings and many informative displays that leads me to hope we don’t go down that path again!

Manzanar War Relocation Centre

Manzanar Propaganda

Barracks at Manzanar War Relocation Centre

Monument at Manzanar Cemetery

We were looking forward to stopping in to Mammoth Lakes as from the literature we’d seen it sounded pretty cool – much like Whistler. Unfortunately, the reality was … it seemed like just another small town … all sprawled out … with stuff (strip malls) here and there (with ‘exclusive’ outlet shops! Caters to a lot of very wealthy people I guess!). There were lots of condos and vacation homes, reminded me of Lake Tahoe which was not a good thing! We stopped and had coffee and baked goods at Schatt’s Bakery which seems have outlets everywhere. There’s a Schat’s Bakery, Schat’s Bar & Grill, Schat’s Trading Post, Schat’s … just about everything! This guy ‘shatt’ all over the area! They did have good pastries tho … we indulged and had some with our coffee this morning! Very tasty!

Schat’s Bakery…

We drove past an interesting place called ‘Mono Lake’ (pronounced Mow-No). An interesting lake with no inflow/outflow that had become very alkaline and 1000% more saline than the ocean. The only things living in there were small brine shrimp and a type of fly! Over the years it had created some interesting formations called ‘Tufa’s’ which are:

Tufa is essentially common limestone. What is uncommon about this limestone is the way it forms. Typically, underwater springs rich in calcium (the stuff in your bones) mix with lakewater rich in carbonates (the stuff in baking soda). As the calcium comes in contact with carbonates in the lake, a chemical reaction occurs resulting in calcium carbonate–limestone. The calcium carbonate precipitates (settles out of solution as a solid) around the spring, and over the course of decades to centuries, a tufa tower will grow. Tufa towers grow exclusively underwater, and some grow to heights of over 30 feet. The reason visitors see so much tufa around Mono Lake today is because the lake level fell dramatically after water diversions began in 1941.

Tufas on Mono Lake

Mono Lake

We really wanted to drive the Hwy #120 through Yosemite Park, but it was still closed, as were many of the higher passes! Drat! So we drove ever northward till we could find an open pass – which was Hwy #89. Then another ‘hair-raising’ drive over a small and twisty road (Hwy#89). Crazy hills and even more crazy down-hills!

There IS more road, right?

Through the mountains on Hwy 89!

A funky little motel in Bridgeport, CA along Hwy 89

We carried on and found a small National Forest Site that wasn’t open with services (and no fees!), but at least had the barriers down so we went in. A nice spot in the trees right next to a lovely river. We had a nice (if not cold) night and up early again in the morning. Westward – HO!