Bishop, CA
This morning, I got up early and went around for a bit to take some pictures of the neighborhood.

There's a creek that goes by the spot where we are staying, so I took a few shots for posterity:





This following shot was taken at the Creekside Inn about a half a block away. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, which means I get my mountain shots today, woohoo!!



Later, we decided to do some exploring, so we drove back down south through the towns of Big Pine and Independence. We had lunch in a French-run American Cafe before heading back.

We did a couple of detours, because Mike saw these sattelite dishes far away and wanted a closer look.



We drove off the highway and down a dirt road to what turned out to be Klondike lake. Didn't make it to the sattelite dishes, but the mountain views were spectacular!



Tomorrow, we'll be hitching back up and heading to Mono Lake for a night of glorious dry camping - in the cold.

We'll be catching up in Reno. See ya then!
- posted by Bigstarlet @ 10:52 PM

 
Bishop, CA
After our two hour layover at the Ridgecrest Walmart, we spent another hour and a half on the road. Despite Mike�s protestations, I made some minimal practice of shooting pictures out the window of our truck. Despite my efforts to keep the right side mirror out of the shots, I still had to some cropping in Photoshop. Oh well�





At about 4:00 PM, we had reached the outskirts of Lone Pine and decided to call it a day driving. The sun was sinking behind the massive cloud bank covering the Sierras, and we didn�t want to scout for open space in darkness as we had done the night before. We came upon an RV park called the Boulder Creek RV Resort and inquire about dry camping possibilities. First thing we noticed was that this place had a convenience store, a VERY well stocked convenience store. We talked to a cordial and congenial young man with a goatee and what I detected to be a Greek accent. He said there was no dry camping, and that it was 28 dollars a night. We decided it wasn't a bad deal, especially in this area, so we went for it.

We were then shown the facilities: the tiled jacuzzi, the spacious showers, and an extravagantly decorated rec room done in a well detailed western motif. There was also an aivary in the rec room which housed representatives of the local bird population.

We also found a cute, funky playground outside with a large cage where 4 goats were kept:





The goats were in love with my red jacket. They got REALLY shy once I whipped out my camera, tho'. They must be tired of stupid tourists taking their pictures. Its as if noone's ever seen a goat before, hehehe:





Mike and I made short order of the jacuzzi. We hadn't had a nice soak since before the Cedar Wildfire, and Mike's muscles were still sore from replacing the water heater, not to mention the tension from pulling a 30 foot trailer up into the mountains. The help kept coming by and cleaning the leaves out of the jacuzzi, and tested the water to make sure it was hot enough. I've never had this kind of customer service in an RV park before. Absolutely amazing.

We decided to hook up a little anyway (batteries on the lappies were running low), and after we cooked our dinner we checked out the doings in the rec room. Turned out, there was a small Halloween party of sorts going on there. A reunion between friends and the owners of the RV resort. So we met Jaqueline, Art (the RV park owners) and a few of their friends, who had just driven in from Fallbrook. So the fire was definitely a topic of conversation. It was really refreshing to actually meet new people again, and not have to deal with any kind of hidden agenda, which was my experience in dealing with people in Southern California. We were among honest, open and friendly folks again. Mike and I had a wonderful time.

The next morning, I woke up to a cold trailer. I worked the thermostat a bit. No heat. When Mike got up later he did some further investigation. The heater is broken. Oh well...we've got about three propane heaters as backup. I'm alittle concerned how we'll make out as we get further north, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it...

I tried to take pictures of the Sierras again the next morning (I was a little disappointed about the cloud cover obscuring the mountains from the night before).



Somewhere in there is Mt. Whitney...







Inyo Mountains

We were kinda sorry to leave that place. Out of all the parks we've stayed in, that has to be one of, if not THE nicest, RV parks we have ever stayed in. We'll DEFINITELY be back!

Two and a half hours later, and we pull into Bishop. We were enjoying cruising the downtown area, when we happened upon J's Mobile Ranch and RV park. Looked rather "lived in", but that was ok. Lots of trees, and it has a little creek running through it. The duck crossing was a nice touch as well.

We had a rather gruff individual greet us, but eventually he warmed up. I took note of all the sayings on the wall: "He who gives up liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security - Ben Franklin", and the picture of an elderly standing in his wheelchair while a military parade passes whiel the rest of the crowd sits". OK...we've got some rugged individualists, or hard core militants here. No matter. $24 bucks a night. And he helped up pull in. Neighbors were cackling and laughing as we set up camp. I found it kinda irritating. Mike didn't care. Said I shouldn't either. Oh well.

We had lunch at the Firehouse Grill where we, again, discussed the So Cal fires with the waiter, who then proceeded to let loose his frustration with the media. OK, in this town, everyone's got a mind to speak. After the fearsome political correctness that represented San Diego County, even if we didn't totally agreed with it, this was QUITE a refreshing change! We like it!

After lunch, we took the bicycles down and went riding through town. I took a few pictures, but only one was savagable enough for public consumption. Besides, I've got plenty of Inyo Mountain pics anyway...



We got back from our bike ride about 2:30 pm, and decided that we had enough daylight to do other things. While Mike chilled, I went next door (yep, next door) to the Erick Schatt Bakery and got my first mocha since we left San Diego. Delish!!

That whole place is sight to behold, actually. If I weren't on the Atkins diet, I would have helped myself to the breads and pastries there. They all looked so YUMMY!! They also had quite a selection of beef jerky too. I'll have to try that out. Cute Euro motif too!

Later, we took the truck and drove further down 395 to the Inyo National Forest.





Later that night, we were relaxing in the trailer, when we got a knock on the door. A woman outside was having problems with her propane sensor and needed some help. Mike got out his RV handbook and went to help her out. Turned out it was the sensor on her fire alarm that was all screwed up. We had a good laugh about it, and invited her in for a spell. Her name was Marsha, and it turned out that she too was a full time RVer. It wasn't clear what she did for a living, but she was actually in town to possibly show photographs at the local art gallery, and was considering doing that for a living. We spent a good half hour discussing boondocking, where to go in the mountains for safe camping, the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV and just life in general here in the Eastern Sierras.

It's nice to discover the lost art (well, it's lost for me) of meeting new people and helping folks out. I tend to keep to myself, but, in the last few days, I've probably had some of the most scintillating, and fun, conversation I've had with strangers in quite sometime.

This morning, I woke up about 6:00 to no running water. I checked the temps outside. 28 degrees F. Pipes are frozen, dammit!! Welcome to an early winter! I was still able to get my coffee thanks to water in our tanks, but my personal lack of preparedness regarding this climate kinda irked me.

Temps NOW are 65 degrees F. Things heat up quickly around here.

Today, we'll be going back to Lone Pine and stopping at a few of the smaller towns we passed yesterday for a closer look. Tomorrow, we are hitching back up and heading to Mono Lake for a dry camping spell. Hope there's not too much snow up there.

I'll load some more pics tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning, as we won't have internet access at least until Carson City, NV.

Stay tuned!
- posted by Bigstarlet @ 9:36 AM