Sparks, Nevada

Good morning, my friends. We’re two days closer to home. We’d intended to travel through Bend, Oregon, on our way home to see some friends there. As turns out, a change in the weather is causing us to reroute. There will be snow in the mountains, and so we’ll need to avoid those mountain passes. That means we’ll head home from tonight’s stop in Klamath Falls, and be home tomorrow afternoon. The kitties are whooping it up right at the moment in celebration, as you might imagine.

As for yesterday’s drive, it was a beautiful day. I’m so glad we were able to head north on US395. I wish we could return home this way every time we make this winter trip, but it’s often too snowy to be safe. The roads were clear for our drive yesterday. As we left Bishop, this was our view.

I took this next image because I wanted you to notice the sharp pinnacles in the mountains there…just below the snowline and spanning the middle portion of the image. It’s a little hard to see in two dimensions, but I’m hoping you can pick them out. 

It reminded us of our trip to Alaska. We had mountains all around us. These next ones were to the east.

As we passed by this frozen water…

we weren’t sure if it was a river or a creek or…as it turns out, it’s a spur off Lake Crowley. The lake is created by the Long Valley Dam for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and is known for trophy trout fishing, boating, and other watersports. 

We like this highway as much for its lack of traffic as for its beautiful scenery. This was our view for much of the day.

At higher elevations, we found beautiful Ponderosa Pines. I love their red bark.

We found more fir trees at even higher elevations…and more snow. Happily, we did not encounter any snow on the roadways.

We were traveling through Mono County, and Bridgeport is its county seat. I could see the courthouse as we approached, but this was the best I could do picture-wise. Shooting out the window of a moving truck doesn’t always allow for good composition. It was a cool building though, as courthouses often are.

I went in search of a better image in the public domain. I liked the one below.

(Image credit: Mono County Courthouse - California by petechar is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

We drove past Mono Lake in Lee Vining, which is at the east end of Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park. Tioga Pass is routinely closed at this time of year because of snow. Mono Lake is a fascinating place, and I would encourage you to click on the link I've given you back there and read a little bit about it.

You might remember the tufa formations we saw when we visited the Trona Pinnacles a while back. (That’s a link to my blog post there.) It's all the same stuff, and although we were hundreds of miles north, we found the same formations. Here, the landscape is still wet. The Trona Pinnacles were at one time in a lake that filled this whole valley. I zoomed in a little here.

Here’s a wider view.

When we were north of the lake we looked back at the stunning view you see below.

Turning my body a little to the left, it looked like this.

Driving on…

We paralleled Walker River for a distance.

The cliffs towering above looked like this:

And I started seeing barns! Oh my goodness. I haven’t seen a barn in ages!

Well, of course, then I started paying more attention.

This actually looks like an abandoned house…or maybe someone lives there…either way. I like this dilapidated old stuff.

After reach about two-thirds of our total distance, we crossed the state line into Nevada.

Not surprisingly, there were more barns and rustic structures there.

We stopped at a “travel plaza” to use their restrooms. While there, I found two shot glasses to add to my collection. Nevada, of course, and Lake Tahoe. We didn’t hit Lake Tahoe on this trip, but we’ve been there before. Now, I have the shot glass.

We were nearing Reno by then…we could see it in the distance. It’s motto: “The Biggest Little City in the World.”

We’re staying in an RV park a couple of blocks from Sparks Marina. It’s a man-made marina, but a nice resource for this community. There were folks playing volleyball. There were no boats on the lake or tied at the slips. A sidewalk surrounded the area, and there was a restaurant across the way.

Mainly we enjoyed the birds. Show me a body of water, and I’ll show you some Canada geese. These two were obviously used to being fed by visitors. They looked me square in the eye and walked up to me as I approached. When I didn’t give them anything, they lost interest in us immediately.

There were a few mallards.

And a few coots.

We leaned our butts against this wall to watch the birds. See all that fluff on the ground? Feathers. We surmise there are feathers all around, and the wind blows them toward this wall where they collect.

When we arrived here, there was a whole colony of gulls out in the lake. Something caused them to flush, and they flew around aimlessly for most of the time we were there. 

Careful…if you have an umbrella, now would be a good time to deploy it.

Eventually they started to settle back down in the water.

And that was our day. We have our longest day of driving tomorrow as we head for home. Today’s drive will have us ending our day in Klamath Falls, in our home state of Oregon. It’s always good to be home, even if we’re not actually home. Soon, though. I am so ready.

Moving North

Good morning, my friends. We’re in a death march toward home, although with our new rule about driving shorter distances, it doesn’t feel as much like a death march. It’s more like a pleasant trot. We’ll head to Reno, Nevada, for today’s drive. There’s no particular reason for stopping in Reno, but it was a good amount of travel for a single day. It probably seems as if ending our day in Nevada would have us traveling in the wrong direction, but it makes sense when you realize that Nevada and Oregon share a portion of their borders.

So let’s talk about yesterday’s drive, shall we? We headed north and west from Furnace Creek, where we stayed in Death Valley. Heading toward Stove Pipe Wells, we passed by Death Valley’s Mesquite Dunes. There were a lot of people out walking on them. Mike and I have never been enticed to go out there. Walking on soft sand is hard on feet and knees.

We saw even more wildflowers on our way out of the park. The blooming rabbit brush lined both sides of the road.

This next image is one in which I hear my mother’s voice: “There goes the road.” Look off there just a little to the right of center in the image below, and you’ll see how the curve we’re taking will lead to a straight-away up into those mountains.

It’s a bit of a harrowing drive through those mountains…narrow roads, twists and turns, rock walls, cliffs without guardrails. Really, there should be a length limit. We’re fine at our length, but there are a lot of folks out there longer than we are. And with the lack of guardrails, folks on those outside turns tend to hug the center line to avoid going over the side. We had two close calls yesterday, coming around a blind turn and finding someone straddling the center line. Yikes! And all’s well that ends well. Nobody died, and so it was a good day.

Coming over a rise, we had a view of the tippy top of Mt. Whitney.

A little farther along, we had a more expansive view of the Sierra Nevada.

This is such a pretty area, and being on the east side of these mountains makes for a beautiful drive home. You might remember in an earlier post what I mentioned about young mountains vs. old mountains. In the image below, I want you to notice the sharp peaks on the snow-capped mountains. Then contrast them with the brown hills in the foreground, where the tops are more rounded. Those are new and old mountains in the same image.

The Sierra Nevada are being pushed up by the depletion of ground water in the region. One figure I read said that the Sierra Nevada has been raised as much as six inches over the past 150 years from ground water depletion alone. Tectonic shifts push the mountains up along the San Andreas Fault, and the depletion of ground water may cause more frequent earthquakes along the faultline. There’s an interesting article about this process right here, if you’d like to learn more.

We stopped at a rest area just north of Lone Pine. There was another pretty view of the mountains there.

It’s tempting to walk on out there, but nah….not feeling like getting snake bit today. Go ahead, though. We’ll wait. Probably.

Okay, and I’m aware that it’s time to choose a goal for March’s

It’s going to be busy when we get home. There will be unpacking to do, and haircuts to get, and pedicures to sit through, and doctor’s appointments to attend, and…oh yes!…I need to pick up Eliza from her long vaycay at the Babylock spa. Nevertheless, I still think I can finish sewing together the Gumballs quilt top. I finished off the final ten blocks while we were traveling.

The remaining 20 blocks are at home.

My goal for March will be to sew the Gumballs blocks into a finished quilt top.

Okay, and my goal for March 2nd will be to make it to our stop in Reno without any unintended interruptions. Fingers crossed.

Bishop, California

Good afternoon, my friends. As you can see from the title of this post, we've moved on from Death Valley. We left a day earlier than we'd planned. It was too darned hot there, and without electricity, we couldn't run our air-conditioner. We enjoyed seeing the wildflowers, and that was our reason for going. Having seen them, we decided to move along. We're heading for home now, taking four nights to get there. 

So, let's talk about our last day in Death Valley, shall we? We left our campsite and drove the short distance to Badwater Drive. In this first image, I captured the sign indicating we were at sea level.

And, wow! We've witnessed one other superbloom in Death Valley, but nothing like this one. The real stars of the show (for now) were the Desert Sunflowers. I would anticipate seeing different flower in a week or two.

The were blooming in vast fields on both sides of the road.

Here, we could see telescope peak and the salt flat there in the middle. At the bottom of the image, more desert sunflowers.

They were growing all along the roadsides.

The supporting cast of flowers was led by the phacelia.

They were growing in big clusters.

And in huge swaths, especially in the washes.

Also of note, we've never seen this much water in Badwater Basin. Usually, there's a small puddle in this vicinity, but the water stretched from the park boundary all the way to Furnace Creek where we were camped...a distance of about 30 miles.

Remember where we were at sea level? Here's where we are now. The red arrow marks the sign indicating sea level in this next image.

We turned around there and headed back, enjoying more fields of sunflowers.

We took the side road of Artists Drive. This is one of the more colorful  places in the park.

It's noteworthy for its large green patches, but there are lots of colors here.

The road dips and curves around. There's a length limit here of 25 feet.

Here's some more of the green.

Coming to the end of the drive, we were still enjoying the variation in colors of the landscape.

Here was another wash filled with phacelia.

Getting back to the main road...

I never get tired of this colorful range.

Other flowers we saw...these were eensy weensy flowers. My phone identifies them as narrow-leaved cryptantha.

My phone identifies these as nama demissa. The flowers were about the size of a dime.

And, of course, the desert chicory.

From there, we headed back to the RV and tried to stay cool. It wasn't too bad sitting outside in the shade. I used an ice pack under my shirt to help cool me off. Later in the evening, we headed over to The Inn at Death Valley for drinks and a light meal. One must pass through this tunnel to reach the elevator to the third floor.

There, we enjoyed prickly pear margaritas and a light dinner.

While we ate, we enjoyed the setting sun.

And while there, we decided to leave Death Valley this morning. We'd seen what we came to see, and we didn't feel like suffering through another hot night without air-conditioning. Besides, the kitties were turning into tiger butter.

So we left Death Valley early this morning, and now find ourselves in Bishop, California. We expect to arrive home by Thursday. We'll spend tomorrow night in Reno, and the continue from there. I'll tell you about today's drive in tomorrow's post.