On the way home

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Around Lake Isabella

The cave-mobiles at Pebbles cave

While enjoying a visit with Pebbles on Friday the 13th, the weather was sort of dismal. It rained and it snowed, it sunned and it blowed. And it was not warm!
 

Rock-O

Fred, Pebbles, Wilma

               It had not changed much this morning, but there was no snow mixed in the rain. The pass was clear as we left the Lake Isabella valley behind, and we knew there was a high wind warning for 395. We were kind of pushed along with a tail wind for the 45 mile drive to 395, and then we changed direction. It blew and it blew and was either coming at us head on or smacking us from the side. Oh what fun it is to ride in a wind slapped cavemobile.

Mountains with fresh snow

               We stopped at the Eastern Sierra VC and found a stamp for Mt. Whitney. It is not an official stamp for our books, but we collect what we can. We could not see Mt. Whitney because of clouds, but the mountains along there were pretty with the fresh snow.

Fire truck in front of VC in one of the remaining buildings

You can see beyond the fire truck how barren it was and is

Soon we came to Manzanar. It is a Japanese relocation center from World War II. We had thought it would be kind of depressing, and it was. But the VC museum and video were very nicely done. There was a huge display with the names of those who had lived there. On Tuesday of this week there will be a special program there with at least 9 of the surviving people who had been brought there from Bainbridge Island, WA. That would have been real interesting, but we were a few days early. We also got our books stamped in the VC. The VC is in one of the few remaining buildings on the grounds. You can take a guided driving tour, and it is three and a half miles long, so the place was pretty big. The constant wind would not have been pleasant, and extremely cold winters and hot summers.

On the way home

As we approached Bishop the road condition board told us to carry chains if going up 395, but 6 was clear. So we again changed plans and are headed directly home rather than take an extra day or two to go the 395 route.
We checked a couple of "rest areas" that were more than slightly undesirable for parking overnight, then tried for a recreation area around Walker Lake, but backtracked to an empty lot in the town of Hawthorne. We will continue on home from here on Sunday.
We have had a great trip so far, and know the travels on Sunday are kind of boring, but should get us home early enough to get the cavemobiles emptied.
We will be looking forward to our next adventure, and will post again then.
Thanks for joining us on our journeys!