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20050524 Lee Vining CA
We got out of the Owens Valley quickly this morning. It was clearly going to get hot again.
We continued north on US-395 through Lone Pine, Big Pine, and Bishop.
Then we came to a big embankment. We crawled our way 4000' higher in 15 miles to the top of it at Deadman's Pass (8041 ft). At the top, it was considerably cooler. We then descended into the Mono Basin and arrived at Lee Vining (6500') well before noon.
It's still desert here, still dry, but it's a good bit cooler. The folks here complained of a miserable winter with cold and a little snow, but a lot of wind.
We set up the trailer and used our new tripod for the first time. It really does improve the stablity of the trailer while parked.
One recommendation our campground host made was to go to Eagle Landing on the June Lake Loop Road for lunch today. We did. Ross was our person and kept us entertained as well. Dolores had crabcakes with a western salsa and I had a turkey Cobb salad. It was good enough that we made reservations for dinner tomorrow night.
There were very few people in the place, probably because they were all out fishing in the little lakes along this road, which has beautiful scenes. Blue lakes, aspens quaking, nearly-vertical mountains, fast-running streams with the snowmelt runoff. Very, very, nice. Quite a few "summer homes" are going up in this valley.
We then went on to Mono Lake's south shore to an area called "South Tufas". A Tufa is a calcium formation caused by up-welling underwater springs in this salty, alkaline, lake. As the lake surface lowered due to appropriation of its source waters by Los Angeles, they became visible. We walked the annotated trail and took a bunch of pictures of tufa and some interesting birds. It got hot in the sun (not much above us) so when we returned to the truck we drank two bottles of water.
Mono lake is re-filling now that Los Angeles has been ordered to stop taking water from its sources. It will take many years to fill to the ordered level, however. Right now, it's 2.5 times saltier than the ocean and 100 times more alkaline. Still, it's a favorite stop on their migration paths for many birds. The brine flies and brine shrimp are favorite foods.
After that, we returned to town, got groceries and a set of corner brackets that might help mount the new power supply and returned to the little house. We read for a bit, watched the Reno news and weather, ate, and generally took it easy.
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20050525 Lee Vining CA Picture Link
After breakfast, we headed north to the ghost town of Bodie, California. It was a gold and silver mining town that boomed in 1878-1882 and had several comebacks as technology improved. It essentially died after a fire in 1932.
Several firsts were performed here. The cyanide method of extracting precious metals was pioneered here, as was the first long-distance transmission of electricity to perform high-horsepower work.
The town is at 8,400' altitude in a desert valley 13 miles off US-395. The first ten miles of the road are paved (CA-270), then it goes to rough gravel. Finally, you go around a hill and there is Bodie, spread out before you.
You pass the cemetery on your left before you come to the parking lot. You pay there, pick up a guidebook, and you're free to walk through the old downtown. They estimate that five percent of the buildings of old Bodie remain; the guide numbers 69 of them. At its peak, Bodie had a population of 8,000 or more and all the modern conveniences as they became known - telephone, electricity, etc.
Bodie was known as a tough town. One little girl wrote in her diary, "Goodbye, God, we're moving to Bodie." Many people were shot or knifed here and many more died of illnesses that were aggravated by the high altitude and cold.
Bodie is now a State Park, complete with rangers to explain things and to keep an eye on it so it doesn't further deteriorate. My question of a ranger as to what Bodie did with a narrow-gage railroad was given the answer that it only hauled wood into Bodie. The mills and industries required 300 cords a day to create the steam power required.
Dolores & I walked all over the area that is accessible; the stamp mill and mining shaft area can only be reached on a tour with a ranger.
After that, we returned to the little house and had a small lunch. We took the Tioga Pass road east out of town to the blockade (the pass is still closed by snow, and they're having flooding on the other end in Yosemite due to snowmelt). Then we went up a little stream and took pictures. Then we returned.
Later, we went out to dinner at Eagle Landing. It was very nice. Dolores had salmon and I had the macadamia crusted halibut.
We returned to the trailer so Dolores could catch the season finale of "Lost".
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20050526 ThursdayLee Vining CA 50/76 Picture Link
We learned today that Tioga Pass will likely remain closed for a long time, perhaps till the fourth of July. The eight feet of snow they got on New Year's Day didn't help. The current flooding in Yosemite due to snowmelt is diverting crews from plowing snow. Perhaps we can do it another time.
Dolores wants to spread the news that we saw regular gas for more than $3.00/gallon for the first time. Diesel was $2.999/gallon at the Chevron out in front of the campground, $2.849 at the Union 76, and $2.579 at the Chevron in Mammoth Lakes, 30 miles south of here.
I spent part of the morning making the mounting of our new 12vdc power supply proper. The power supply wouldn't fit in the old one's position, so I mounted it under a pull-out drawer below the refrigerator, in an un-used space. The biggest problem was in attaching the power leads to it (they were almost too short).
We toured a little easier today. We did the Mammoth Lakes ski area including the roads to the point where they're closed due to snow. We took pictures, of course. D took one of me standing behind a three-foot snow pile. Part of one lake was still frozen over. We finished there by taking the scenic loop looking for bears, who had the good sense to stay away.
We then went to Convict Lake and looked over things there. Nice lake with a good-looking resort. Lots of fishermen. Maybe we should have had dinner there last night, but we chose Eagle Landing based on local input.
Back, then, to the little house. We walked the town and bought a few items at the market. It turns out the town of Lee Vining was named for a Leroy Vining, an early miner in Aurora, then Bodie, then here. He was fumbling around with a pistol one day and shot himself accidentally. He died soon after. For some unknown reason, the town named itself after him. We saw two stores stocking up for opening tomorrow.
We're loafing around the little house now, after a chicken fettucine dinner by Dolores.
Tomorrow (Friday of the Memorial Day weekend) we move on to Minden, Nevada, just outside Carson City.
(Later) Surprise!! A little thunderstorm came over the hill and gave us a little rain with a lot of noise. There could be more of them tonight - Reno weather has a bunch of them coming over the mountains.
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