Monday September 8, '14

We had a wonderful couple of days on the south side of Mt. St. Helens.  We stayed at Lone Fir in the town of Cougar, across the road from a beautiful lake.  The campground is a nice RV resort with motel rooms, cabins, RV and tent sites, a pool, laundry facilities, and a cafe.  We just flaked out when we arrived Saturday afternoon.  We got the lawn chairs out, set up a little table, split a large bottle of great beer--Hefe (ginger, honey, and wheat)--and watched the recreating world pass by.  Boats of all varieties, and RVs of all varieties.  The resort holds the climbing register for people who plan to climb St Helens (climbers must go up the south face) so we got to check out some climbers too.

Sunday we spent the day seeing some of the interesting sites on the south side of the mountain.  We drove east and up in elevation and started at the Ape Caves, which are lave tubes formed when the hot lava ran down the mountain through a tube of cooling, solid lava.  You are required to be carrying lights and have a warm jacket.  The National Forest Service will loan you a Coleman lantern with a 2-hour propane tank.  And they give you a few strike-anywhere matches.

Cher and I had head lamps and a hand-cranked flashlight (thanks, Gina!) and we figured we were in great shape.  We started down the metal (see-through tread) stairs, which started out by dropping us down about 25 feet before we arrived at a ledge of stone.  We crossed the really uneven stone, turned on our headlamps, and started down the next section of stairs.  By the time we got to the bottom of the cave it was pretty dark!  We went downhill in the lava tube instead of uphill, because it was supposed to be the easier route.  Didn't take long before we were in total darkness!  We realized that two headlamps and a crank-up flashlight were not going to cut it!  Besides, despite the claims, the floor was very rough going and neither of us were prepared for that shoe-wise.  We stopped to take a bunch of pictures and headed back up-slope for the climb up to ground level.  We were both so glad we had seen some of the cave--and rather proud of ourselves!

Here we are emerging from Ape Cave.  Yes, we are proud of ourselves!  Notice Cher's new Dansko clogs--they did a good job!

A strange vein of some mineral that filled up a crack in a side wall.

This is looking straight up inside where it was very dark.  The tube has very interesting curves in the roof as though several flows of lava went through it.

From Ape Caves we continued east around the south side of St Helens to see an area that received lahar flows (2004 to 2008, I think) and stopped several times to look and take pictures.

You can see the deposited rock and ash through the vegetation.
Plant growth is slow but sure.  The area is very stark but very beautiful!

In this closer shot you can see the outflow plain and the browny-green
very low growing plant life it supports.

Our road passed a mostly dry river bed that had cut down through a series of layers of ash.  Here's a shot of that too!

You can see the exposed rock in the bed of the river.
And how young most of the trees are!

The layers of ash stand out pretty clearly.

We drove to the end of the road to see the overlook of Lava Canyon but were unable to get into the parking lot due to the jammed up parking of an RV and a van with a large bike rack.  We backed out, turned around in the parking lot's entrance, and headed back toward Lone Fir and home for the afternoon.

On the way "home" we stopped at the dam on Lake Merwin to take a look at the lake  and the dam.  Water is released by the dam into a channel where the water again drops through a set of turbines to generate electricity.

You can see the dam on the right side of the picture.

Today, Monday, we drove east and south from Cougar and followed the Wind River down a web of back roads to the little town of Carson in the scenic area of the Columbia River Gorge.  We drove east along the Washington side of the Columbia River to the area of Maryhill, where hiway 97 crosses the Columbia into Oregon.  We are staying at Peach Beach, which is a great RV camp in a Working peach orchard right on the banks of the river.  After dinner tonight we walked about 50 yards down a little slope to the river bank for  sunset and moonrise.

Moon rise, up the Columbia River.

Sunset looking down the Columbia.  The lights are the bridge across the river going south to Oregon.

Good night all!  We're off to Maryhill Museum and the Yakima Nation Cultural Center and RV park tomorrow!



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September 6, '14

Myrtle, Livy, and I am camping with my friend Cher down on the flanks of Mt. St. Helens.  We just spent two days on the north side, completely out of any internet or cell phone connection, so we are sitting in a parking lot next to I-5 to do a quick catch up before we head down to the south side of St. Helens for a few days.

We started the trip from my home in Duvall at about 9:30 am on Thursday and took some back highways down to catch I-5 in Tacoma.  By lunch we were at the hiway 504 turnoff.  After a quick lunch we headed up to our Kid Valley RV Camp to claim our reserved campsite, then drove up to the Johnson Observatory to see the results of the eruptions that began May 18, 1980.  We spent a couple of hours taking pictures, listening to ranger talks, and viewing the film about the eruption.  I noticed that the stream beds in the outflow plain below the caldera are deeper than they were 4 years ago, the last time I visited.

The calder from Johnson Observatory at 3 pm

The same view at 6 pm

The outflow plain where rocks, water, ash, and mud flowed out of the side of the mountain.

We could see a corner of Spirit Lake around to the north east, but only when the ranger pointed it out.  The floor of the lake is now 140 feet higher than it used to be.  the lake is half as deep and covers twice the area it covered before the eruption.

On Friday the 5th we drove part of the highway back toward Johnson Observatory and visited the visitor centers and overlooks.  We got some great views of the Toutle River valley and some interesting information about what happened and when.  We also did a little shopping--we were pretty restrained.

This looks down the Toutle River Valley.  The tree with the cones is a
 Noble Fir--thousands were planted within a few years following the eruption. 

Looking up the Toutle River Valley.  Over my shoulder you can see St Helens is
wearing a bit of thin cloud this morning.  Thanks for the picture, Cher!

A telephoto shot of the valley and mountain.  You can see that the river wanders all over the valley, changing channels frequently.

Friday night we ate dinner at Patty's Place, a great old log building in beautiful condition that is just a short walk from out RV park.  We sat on the back deck, looking out on the Toutle Valley at a bend in the river.  I only had my phone with me, so I'll have to email the picture to myself to get it into the blog--later.

Cher made her second full day of RVing with great delight.  She had we take a picture of her with her headlamp (flashlight that is attached to an elastic band around your head and sits in the middle of your forhead).  She is sending that picture to her folks, and I'm sure she won't let me have a copy--and I'm sure she'd kill me if I shared it!

As I said, today we are heading down I-5 to take hiway 503 to the south side of the mountain.  We will stay at Lone Fir RV Resort, where climbers register for the climb to the summit.  We will spend a couple of days exploring the Ape Cave lava tube and a lahar (mud-flow) overlook.  Then we are heading south down through the Cascades along Wind River to the Columbia River Gorge.  Hopefully we will be able to connect with the net again when we are out of the mountains.

Tuesday July 29, '14

Yesterday the sky started out looking like it would rain.  A few hours later we had a bright blue sky with a puffy cloud here and there.  At mid-afternoon three of us went for a walk on the beach down along the lighthouse paths in fog thick enough that we could barely see the surfers when we got up to that end of the beach.  What was unexpected was the "here again gone again" view of buildings in Ocean Shores across the mouth of the bay.  Even in the fog the views were beautiful!  We had a good walk and I took no pictures because I left my phone in the truck!

It is 6:30 and I am about to close up here at American Sunset in Westport.  I drained my tanks yesterday and disconnected from the water faucet so I just have to disconnect the electricity and stow my power cord.  And do my multiple-times walk around to check that all outside bins are locked, awning is in, I didn't leave anything in the campsite . . .

I'm headed to Seattle for a lunch get-together with my long-time friends from our Women's Investment Network days.  We couldn't let the friendships go.  The bonds are far too deep and precious!  I'll catch some pictures to post to wind up this wonderful trip.

Sunday July 27 '14

We are having another fantastic day.  I just checked the weather on my phone and it says we are at 73 degrees!  It is pretty breezy, so it feels cooler.  But there is not a cloud to be seen.

Last night before dinner I took a couple of pictures of my new "line laundry" (a term a kite flying friend who lives down here told us means all that non-kite stuff you have flying from your tall pole).  Pretty great, but I have to figure out a better way to mount the pole.

Here is my double helix called "DNA".

With the two strips it always looks different.

I have it attached to Myrtle's back bumper with bungee cords and folded up a dish towel into a plastic bag and tied it to the pole at Myrtle's back window to keep the pole from bumping against Myrtle's skin.  Not elegant, but it does the job for now.

Dinner was fun last night.  The "heritage-dish potluck" dishes included fresh-caught salmon, Russian, Irish, Icelandic, Scottish, Romanian, Finnish, Swedish, English,  Nebraskan, Italian, Greek, and Dutch--and more.  Turns out we had more than 70 of us this weekend, so we had an amazing range of dishes  to try.

This morning we had only one new rig to baptize, so we had fun hearing it's story and toasting in apple juice.  There are definitely some girl scout echoes in our activities--we sang "Its a long long trail" to wish each other a safe trip home.  The majority of women headed home, but I think somewhere between a third and a quarter of us are sticking for another day or three.

As others were packing up, I got to play with the kittens again.  At 12 weeks they are completely happy to zip around wearing a harness and a leash.  The main problem is keeping the two leashes untangled!

The little girl is the adventurous one.

Her brother is deciding he also likes the
outdoors.  It took him a while.

Three of us went into town to have lunch at Bennet's again.  I had crab cakes today--absolutely delicious!  They have such a great menu that I have a very hard time making up my mind.  We might have to go back tomorrow--there are clams, halibut, cod, shrimp---but the local crab is sooo good.

We're sitting out in my friend Fran's screened "tent" with Fran knitting and me playing with the computer.  Actually I have been spending more time talking to all the RVW members who are walking by than I have writing.

Dinner tonight is left-over salmon and whatever everyone decides to bring to the rec center.  Should be fun!  I'll talk at you all tomorrow!

Saturday July 26, '14

We are having the most gorgeous beach day I can remember ever spending on the Washington coast.  Yesterday was wonderful, with clouds coming and going, but today is absolutely clear blue and 70 degrees.

I have a few pictures from our walk into town yesterday, so you can see the "almost perfect" day.  We arrived in town for a late lunch--I had outstanding clam chowder.

We had fun wandering through the shops.   I got a
telescoping fiberglass pole and a rainbow helix
that spins in the wind.  I'll get a picture before
dinner tonight.

Across the street from the shops is the harbor.
A couple boats were selling fresh-caught
tuna.  The fishers from our group came home with
 beautiful salmon.

I just had to get a shot of how calm the water in the bay was.
The clouds may have been moving through, but at sea level there was hardly a ripple.

In the late afternoon I wandered the campground again with Lauri to catch the Friday arrivals, give them a "Hi there!" and a copy of the schedule of events.  We have 40 RVs and about 60 people this trip.  By the end of the walking I was limping from the plantar fasciitis I'm trying to not have, and skipped the announcement get-together in the evening in favor of staying off my foot so I could get around today.

This morning I walked down to the rec center with my breakfast, and stayed for the book club (they had read Orphan Train and now I want to read it!).  Following book club we had a presentation by an LED lighting manufacturer.  The couple, Tom and Stella, gave a really great discussion of the five questions you need to ask when shopping for LED lighting.  Tom also made crystal clear exactly how they work.  Of course we got the rally discount and a $5.00 coupon, so I made a small start on my transition to LED.  I'm for anything that lengthens how long I can go on a battery charge!

We had an assortment of lunch groups with crab and salmon cooking in the campground or people going into town to eat.  I've got to get a bike rack so I can get around more easily!  I had a fun BBQ lunch with a bunch of other "solo travelers"--those of us who usually camp on our own.

Tonight is a potluck dinner, with people bringing dishes from their heritage.  That's getting a lot of laughs because, like me, most of us are what John's grandmother called "dutch, devil, and dog."

I'll get out and get some pictures now, as I head to dinner in the rec center.  Adios!

Friday July 25, '14

I am camping with the Cascadia Chapter (Washington and BC Canada) of RVing Women (RVW) in Westport Washington, about midway down the coast.  We are staying at American Sunset RV and Tent Resort for the RVW weekend. I arrived about mid-afternoon Wednesday to find that I was not the first member to settle into the campground--a group had been camping down at Grayland for several days and had moved north on Wednesday.

We had great sun and puffy white clouds to set up, but the evening and night brought winds and heavy rains that finally tapered off after midnight.  Thursday was cloudy all day and looked very threatening.  a group of us had planed to walk into town, but with the intermittent rain drops we opted for a short walk to the pizza/Italian restaurant across the highway next to the air port.  We shared a fantastic pulled pork/ham/pineapple/onion/BBQ sauce pizza and watched the birds playing in the wind above the air strip--egrets, swallows, and a raptor that was up too high to identify.

I spent the later part of the afternoon as a "Hi There Gal," walking the campground finding RVW members, welcoming them to the event, and handing out schedules.  Since I'm not sure about most people's names, I was accompanying Lauri, a gal who has been a member for six years and knows just about everyone.  I took a few pictures of rigs so that you could see the variety--I didn't get a picture of our tenters or our cabin-renters.

Fran's Aliner is 12 feet long--much bigger than
 mine was.  Her dog Jackson, who is fairly big, has his own bed.

These are both RVW rigs.  The closest, the class C LazyDaze
is a great contrast to the elegant Tiffin class A.

This 5th wheel is about the middle of the size range
 we RVWs  are driving.

With no wind yesterday afternoon and evening the mosquitoes settled on us in droves.  Most of us ended up turning in early.

We had a beautiful clear blue sky this morning, but some clouds are moving in.  I'm taking off for the dock part of town, (to the north).  I'll take some pictures as I go!

Monday June 23, '14

I made it home with no problems. Myrtle, Livy, and I are all healthy!

Sunday June 22, '14

I have no pictures to post--I just wanted to let you all know that I will be heading home tomorrow.  I've had a battle with a virus, but I'm winning.  I was up walking around today, and will be in good shape to drive tomorrow.

Friday June 20, '14

I woke up this morning at 5:05, peeked out the window over my bed, and jumped up to grab my jeans and camera and run outside.  Sunrise was not to be missed!  I went a little snap-happy, but I like this one the best.

That shape on the skyline is the Museum.  I'll get a daylight picture of it later for you all.  Notice that the campground street lights look very dim in comparison!

We had a wonderful seafood buffet at the casino last night.  Clams, mussels, king crab, squid, oysters, salmon, cat fish, several kinds of shrimp, a large variety of salads, and of course prime rib and T-bone steak and all the fixings.   The desert selection was also amazing--I had delicious lemon chiffon pie instead of something chocolate.

The really interesting thing about the casino was the lack of alcohol.  The reservation is dry and so the casino is dry.  The place was jam-packed (we had to park in a distant parking lot and shuttle over) and no one seemed to miss the alcohol.

When we got back from the casino it was beginning to get a bit breezy so I reeled in Myrtle's  rebuilt awning.  But the front arm would not fold into place.  The top front edge of the awning fabric--maybe 6 inches of it--doesn't appear to be attached, so it may not be reeling in and aligning correctly.  Anyway, I took some pictures if anyone, namely the brothers, want to try some long-distance trouble-shooting.

This is the back arm of the awning, for comparison.  You can see that it is
 not perfectly aligned.

You are looking at the front arm from the back of Myrtle.  Notice that there is more space
between the awning fabric and the arm than there is between the back arm and the fabric.

Here is the front arm of the awning from the front of Myrtle.

Myrtle just spent two days in the "rehab ward"--Open Road RV's service department in Monroe--and got her fiberglass repaired on the outside of her passenger side upper bunk corner.  She had also begun having electrical problems--her batteries wouldn't stay charged--and Open Road's conversation with Forest River (the manufacturer) indicated that it is probably a part that they have had problems with, so that part is on its way to Open Road.  They have also been dealing with my awning--replaced it the first time I wiped it out--and have basically rebuilt it from the damaged parts after my second wipe-out in Bisbee AZ.  A bit of problem now is very understandable!

Livy and I had a short walk after breakfast this morning so she is taking a nap.  All of the dogs make her hyper even though most of them are her size.  I did see a rottie this morning that reminded me of Ben!  At any rate, I'm off for a cat-free walk!

OK-here is a P.S.!  KC Edinger, head of service at Open Road, just called me about something else, and told me to just push the bottom of the awning arm in.  I did, and it is exactly in place!  Feeling a little dumb here.

Thursday June 19,'14

Myrtle, Livy, and I are camping at the Yakima Nation RV Campground outside of Toppenish, WA.

This is the main entrance to the RV campground.  Evidently kids like to
sneak into the pool and basketball courts.

These gorgeous flowers grow just to the left of the entryway
in the previous picture.

I'm about to go to dinner at the casino with a bunch of members of my group--RVW (RVing Women).  I'll post some afternoon pictures now and add some words later!

Here is Myrtle with her rebuilt awning out doing its job in the warm
afternoon sun.  That is our nearby tree behind.

We have that tree nearby, with our picnic table under it.  Son Tracy says it will be
hot this weekend, so the tree is great!

Monday May 26, '14

I had almost 18 hours at home before we headed out on Thursday May 22 for our Memorial Day camping trip.  Just enough time to get a good night's sleep, clean out the refrigerator, and wash a couple of loads of clothes in Shelley and brother Dave's washing machine.  I was waiting for the second load to finish its final spin when the machine started smoking and smelling like burning rubber.  I swore to David that my clothes weren't THAT dirty.  Don't think he believed me.

We are up on the banks of the Skagit River in Rockport WA, a little town on Highway 20--what most Washingtonians call the"North Cascade Highway."  This highway crosses the Cascade Mountains closest to the Canadian border of any of Washington's passes and is the most scenic, with the central peaks rocky and rugged.

We older folks arrived Thursday afternoon (five RVs of us) and the younger folks arrived Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.  All told, a group of about 35 or 40 campers, with day visitors adding to the fun.  The weather has given us a bit of everything except ice and snow. Sun, wind, rain, drizzle, grey clouds, white clouds, and lots of fog on the mountain tops.

I think of this as Howard Miller's Main Street.  It comes down the hill
to the three main circles of camping sites.

This time of year the park and the river are both amazingly green.  I think I am especially paying attention to the green having just spent those weeks in the desert.

I took this picture in the rain.  You see the gray reflected from the sky and
a bit of mist along the far side of the Skagit River.

The campground was full to capacity Friday (except for the tent sites).  Some people packed up and left early Sunday morning--it hadn't even started raining yet that day!  Actually, Saturday was sunny and fairly warm most of the day.

Brother Dave and nephew Tim--our two chief BBQers
may be discussing pulled pork.

We had great weather for campfire sitting by us experienced campers and assorted game playing by the grandkids.  Some of the intrepid antique shoppers checked out an estate sale in Concrete (nearby town) and came home with treasures.  Various campers' had friends come up for the day on Saturday or Sunday.

Some of us followed the trail down-river through the meadows and berry patches that are on park land.

Sunday, unlike Saturday, was not a sunny day.  We may have had a peek at the sun, but I can't remember for sure.  But we got together for breakfasts of biscuits and gravy or belgian waffles and hash browns.  A tough choice to make, and I'm not sure some campers didn't try both!

You can see the clouds sitting on the ridge.

Even Chuck and Patty's flamingos were pretty unhappy!

We all cooked for Sunday night's potluck.  Wonderful food--pulled pork sandwiches, beans and other side dishes, potato and every other kind of salad.  As usual, about twice as much food as we could eat.  We topped that off with home-made ice cream with hot chocolate sauce a couple of hours later.

The playground is bordered by brilliant azaleas.

This is monday, and five of us "experienced campers" have refused to go home, so we have three RVs hanging out here in our circle, when we had ten RVs this morning.   No kids remain anywhere--the playground is empty!  And even we will hit the road tomorrow.

I'm not sure where my next trip will be, but I plan to do a lot of trekking this summer.  Most of the trips will be fairly short, but I'll keep posting as I go, so check in every week or so for more news and pictures.

Monday May 19, '14

Tonight I'm in Sutherlin Oregon, just north of Roseburg.  I spent the last couple of nights at Rancheria RV Park, about 20 minutes from Mt. Lassen National Park.  It turns out that Lassen usually opens by the 4th of July.  But this year, with little snow, they are opening for Memorial Day.  I had a good time tucked into my RV park, nestled in next to Lake Katherine (a very small lake).

First, I'm including a couple of pictures I took the evening I spent at Meadowcliff RV on the east side of the Sierra chain.  I meant to take better pictures in the morning, but i got involved talking to the family from Eugene in the campsite next to me, and forgot!  So you get the dim evening pictures instead.  It really wasn't evening--barely 5:30--but the park is in the shadow of the Sierra.

Looking east, the range of mountains beyond the Sierra are still in the sun.

Looking west.  The two tiny trees beyond the metal fence are about 35 feet tall.

The morning I left Meadowcliff I backtracked into the little town of Walker to visit the Out West Gallery.  I had stopped there about 20 years ago and bought an 8 by 10 foot handwoven Zapotec rug that I still love even if it is not on my floor.  The shop has a new owner, but still has beautiful one-of-a-kind items.  (Susan and Rick--I think that you have shopped here too?)  I came away with three amazing Zuni fetishes.  One is a mare and foal for Paula Isakson, and one is a dinosaur to keep my stegosaurus company.  The other one is a cat with an inlaid silver collar and pendant.  Well, I resisted the jewelry!

I did get gas for Myrtle in Carson City, which now seems to be a suburb of Reno.  I paid $3.97, which was pretty consistently the going rate.  Part of highway 395 is a brand new 6 lane freeway through the southern part of Reno--it threw my new GPS into a brain-freeze.  Poor thing kept trying to figure out what road I was on until it finally gave up!  It sure was happy when I ended up back on the older part of 395.

Coming up over the range of mountains was interesting. (Are they Sierra or Cascade in here?)  I have driven this road several times (all long ago!) so I was surprised at how aware I was of the change in vegetation.  The ponderosa forest is made up of enormous trees compared to the ponderosas I had seen farther south (and at much higher elevations).  The meadows looked like they had been lake beds not too many decades ago.

Rancheria RV Park, where I stayed, had meadows in among the ponderosas, but it also had a little lake.  Myrtle cuddled up along the shore and Livy and I had a flock of interesting ducks for full-time entertainment.

Myrtle is camping in this row along the lake. Sorry about the tipsy shot!

I felt very at-home here.  The park was the closest to a camp ground of any non-federal or state campground I've stayed at. (They did have a store and restaurant, however, so not really roughing it.)

Our flock of seven ducks are an odd mix.

In our flock of ducks, we had a male and a female mallard, four ducks that looked to be all black, including bills and feet, and one combo-duck that was unique!  They seemed very relaxed but if any threat appeared they calmly and quickly made for the cattails in the water.  They thought Livy was okay up to a certain point.  The  six or seven year old boy camped across the road was apparently a well recognized threat--he didn't even have to get all the way across the road before they were gone!

I haven't a clue what kind of ducks these are.  There are some
mallard genes in there, but the rest?

Livy and I met another solo woman RVer walking her cat on a leash yesterday evening.  He was a sweet Maine Coon cat and Livy was very rude.  She hissed and swore and called him names.  I finally had to put her in Myrtle.   I enjoyed talking with the woman, who has been RVing full time for years.  She is from Wisconsin, but her RV is licensed in South Dakota for tax purposes.  A lot of "fulltimers" pick the state to license their RV for tax reasons.

This morning as we were leaving, we actually had a couple drops of rain.  The forecasters were talking about a possibility of a shower, but it sounded like thunder and lightning were going to be part of the package.  Not good news in such dry country.

Definitely on the "visit again" list.

So . . . tonight in Oregon.  Tomorrow night in Vancouver Washington, and in Trilogy (Redmond Washington) Wednesday afternoon for a birthday get-together.  Home by Wednesday evening!  Just in time for laundry before Friday's trip to Howard Miller Steelhead Park on the Skagit River.

Friday May 16, '14

I woke up in Bishop kind of late--about 7:30.  So by the time I showered (with the pump doing it's job nicely), had breakfast, washed dishes, emptied black and gray water tanks, loaded up equipment, and did my preflight checks it was 9 am and getting warm.  I headed up 395 (and I do mean UP in elevation, from about 4000' to above 7000') to Mammoth and saw a "closed" sign on the Devil's Postpile signpost (the Postpile is some really amazing columnar basalt in the middle of the Sierra granite).  So I stopped at Mammoth's great visitor center and started asking questions about what in the eastern Sierra region was open, what was closed, and why.  The "Why" turned out to be snow in every case but one (one of the lakes is closed because of high CO2 emissions from volcanic vents).  So, no visit to Red's Meadow where Marge and Pop and I stayed in the greatest A frame cabin.  No visit to the Postpile.  I could drive by Toulomne Meadows because the road is plowed, but there would be no stopping.  None of the places I was thinking about camping were open yet.  Very strange going from too late in the season to too early!

So . . . I went grocery shopping at Von's in Mammoth for fresh fruit, veggies,  milk--all of the non-Kmart stuff.  Had lunch, did not buy gas.  Three stations all had regular 87 octane priced at $4.64.  I paid $3.59 in Kingman AZ two days ago, and had half a tank left--about 250 miles worth of gas remaining.  I checked gas prices at Lee Vining (at Mono Lake where the highway across the top of Yosemite runs into 395).  Their gas was $4.79.  Bridgeport, the next little town north, was $5.09!  Obviously I didn't recognize a good deal when I saw it at Mammoth.  I'm waiting for Reno suburbs, about 25 miles away.

With so many places closed, I ended up having a great time at Mono Lake.  I first went to a site on the south coast of the lake.  The last mile or so of the 5 mile road in was gravel, but in pretty good shape.  I took it nice and slow after Livy's carsickness over yesterday's roller coaster of a road.

I stopped in the middle of the road!  You can see the nearby tufa deposits and the volcanic dome islands
 out in the lake.

The islands you see in the lake are the result of volcanic activity.  The white island is lake bed that was pushed up by a lava dome, and the black island is a dome that formed above the lake bed.

The water in Mono Lake is 10% salt (the Pacific is about 3.5%).  It is a sister of Salt Lake, formed in the same way, in the same Basin and Range region--Mono is on the far west side and Salt Lake is on the far east side of the geologic region.

They had some great explanatory plaques.

Basically, the fresh water that comes into the lake arrives underground.  As it filters up into the lake water the calcium in the fresh water bonds with the CO2 in the lake to make rock called tufa.  The tufa rocks formed in lines along the flow of the fresh-water underground streams.

The mile long loop trail takes you through the formations
that are now landlocked down to the lake.

The stuff is amazing to look at--full of little holes that fresh water must have kept open while the formations were growing.  Now those holes have all kinds of bugs living in them.

From the colors you can tell other minerals beside calcium
were carried into the lake too.

I made it a bit farther down the trail and found the plaque talking about the state's decision in 1994 to control the amounts of fresh water that used to flow into the lake that were being rerouted for human use. I was here during the fall of 1994, while the heated debate was going on.

This plaque stands at the 1964's lake edge.  It is now about 1/4 mile from the lake.

For all of the debate, this environment is critical to migrating birds and supplies a unique living space that is matched only by Salt Lake.  The brine shrimp alone are fantastic!

Whatever you think about water wars, it is an amazing place.

I also spent time in the visitor's center.  They had some good displays about the lake.  In addition, they had some very interesting displays on the native Americans who lived in this area.  I did buy one book:  The West Without Water.  What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow.  Can't wait to read it!

I'm in a beautiful place tonight--Meadowcliff Resort near the town of Walker (and not far from the Nevada border at Reno).  I'll post the pictures tomorrow when I have some morning sun pictures to go with the evening sun pictures.

I'm planning to make it to Mt Lassen tomorrow.  Wish me luck on snow levels!