We woke up at our hotel at 7:30 and hit the road at 8. We swung by Manzanar,
the site of one of the Japanese internment camps during WWII. We stopped at a
monument in the cemetery
and reflected on the fact that us Americans are not always in the right.
Somehow, a thought made all the more relevant by current events.
We contiued north on Hwy 395 to Bishop, where we had breakfast at a busy
diner. I was enjoying eating at these little greasy-spoons on our trip, but
no doubt my gut wasn't quite so enthusiastic! After breakfast, we went
through Mammoth Lakes and tried to find the road to Devil's Postpile. It
wasn't especially well-marked, but after a detour, we found the parking lot.
Due to the narrowness of the road and fears of over-use, you cannot easily
drive down the road to Devil's Postpile, but rather you have to take a shuttle
bus from a ski resort down. Its only a $5 ticket, so no big deal. After a
moderately short shuttle trip, we did the short hike (1/2 mi) to the monument.
Its a very unusual formation of basalt columns, some of which have been
twisted around and are sticking out horizontally. The formation was smaller
than I rememberd it being, but then again, the last time I visited it was in
1978 or so. One of these days it'd be nice to spend a bit more time exploring
the various other things to see in the valley there (waterfalls, meadows,
etc.).
Due to the shuttle bus, it took more time than I'd anticipated seeing Devil's
Postpile, and we continued north to Mono Lake. A brief jaunt later, and we
arrived at the parking lot for the South Tufa formations. After paying the
whopping $1/person entrance fee (which is also good for the Ancient
Bristlecone Pine Forest farther south off of 395), we meandered around the
strange calcium formations protruding from the lake. I'm pretty sure I'd
never been to the South Tufa before, and they were pretty impressive! After
spending an hour or so marvelling at these oddities, we continued on our way
to our final tourist stop of the day, Bodie.
The ghost town of Bodie
is located off of a rough dirt road (from the
direction we came at least). It was a fun road to drive on, except that a
Mercury SUV was in front of me, and seemed to be having trouble navigating the
road. This was good for a laugh at their expense. Bodie is a large ghost
town, abandoned in the 1930s. We spent a good while here, admiring the old,
quickly-abandoned buildings, many of which still had their furnishings in
them. After I finally ran out of batteries and/or film for both of my digital
cameras, we headed back out.
The north road from Bodie is only un-paved for a few miles, then is a long, sweeping narrow road, very fun to drive on! From there, we blazed north, stopping briefly in Bridgeport for lunch, then continuing over Monitor Pass, Luther Pass, and Echo Pass to Placerville, and finally north on 49 to Auburn, arriving at 9. After quickly dropping Barry off, I continued for the last 2.5 hrs of my drive. After a total of over 16 hours on the road, I arrived home at midnight and promptly crashed out!
This was a great road trip! A lot of driving (~1300 miles) and a heckuva hard hike, but lots of lovely scenery and exertion make it a trip I'll not soon forget!
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10 September, 2004 PDT
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