I get on the road\u00a0a little before noon – pretty good for me – return library books and pick up a salad and sando, and I’m on the road!
<\/a>Diesel in Carson City\u00a0–<\/strong>\u00a0$1.89\/gal – I never thought I would\u00a0see gas at such a price again in my lifetime. Life sure ain’t as predictable as it seems day to say – it’s enough to make me wonder if I should be worrying about a President Trump!<\/p>\n Steak and eggs for $5.99 at Topaz Lake<\/strong> – one of my favorite stops. As always quite a nice little steak and a spectacular view of the lake and Antelope Valley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It is still winter. Pretty much every campground between Reno<\/strong> and Bishop<\/strong> is closed for the season, I didn’t want to drive as far as Bishop on the first day. It took some drama – a cracked phone case and a cranky interchange at the Mammoth Lakes Information Center<\/strong>, but I did find a place to hole up for the night. All in all I had a pretty nice\u00a0night sleeping in the\u00a0Canyon Lodge<\/strong> parking lot!<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Canyon Lodge<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n just a parking lot, but they left me alone. Turns out where I parked was the employee parking area, so about 7AM I was surrounded by groggy 20-somethings on all three sides, going to work at the lodge.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n just a parking lot, but they left me alone. Turns out where I parked was the employee parking area, so about 7AM I was surrounded by groggy 20-somethings on all three sides, going to work at the lodge.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Not much to say about my evening. I put up the opaque screen on the sliding\u00a0door window because this seems like a place where I might need\u00a0privacy. I guess I thought I didn’t need that much privacy, because I did not put up the windshield screen. I’m glad. I think that helped me blend in. Anyway, I parked, settled in, ate my Newman’s salad, and wifi’d off Personal Hotspot till 11-ish. As almost always on the first night, I slept poorly. After a tossy-turny night, I found myself wide awake at 5\u00a0am, so I read until I finally\u00a0dozed off again — for a little while :-\/<\/p>\n Pretty much at the crack of dawn I hear cars and car doors slamming\u00a0and general\u00a0activity all around me. \u00a0Turns out that I was, as noted above, in the employee lot, which was a busy place!<\/p>\n Overall, it worked out very well.\u00a0The Lodge employees didn’t give a hoot about me – at least some of them must\u00a0have heard my\u00a0heater running and so must of had a hint there was someone inside. Even though\u00a0they didn’t care, I was uncomfortable hanging out in the daylight with all the workaday activity going on about me, so the net effect was to get me started on the day MUCH earlier than usual! I was drinking my coffee at Looney Bean<\/strong> by 8AM. \u00a0Quite a shock\u00a0to my system!<\/p>\n Then southward. I still have time on my hands so I took the long way\u00a0– Old 395<\/strong> down the hill to Bishop<\/strong>, very pretty. Ate at El Rancho<\/strong>, my usual Bishop stop, where I had my usual order of machaca (or chorizo) con huevos.. Bishop has gotten pretty expensive. Machaca con huevos was $11! The other smart thing I did was drive pff the main road for a\u00a0couple of miles to the Manor Market<\/strong>. It’s a very nice independent market on\u00a0Line Street<\/strong>, the street that turns into 168<\/strong> the road\u00a0up to the lakes, I stocked up on quality picnic food for what I expect\u00a0to\u00a0be three days and nights of no decent food choices.<\/p>\n I’ve decided to stay in one of the Inyo County<\/strong> campgrounds tonight. There are a bunch of them south of here. They are all pretty similar – strips of land leased from the\u00a0LADWP<\/strong> (Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power), along one of the picturesque little\u00a0LADWP creeks. From north to south, the ones I was interested in are:<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Independence Creek Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Real good find! I thought these county parks were spendy, but $10 seems like a pretty good deal to me right now! On one of those little "creeks" LADWP sculpted out to constrain "their" water. Wide open sagebrush on one side, a column of willows and cottonwoods following the creek on the other. Very quiet and pretty today.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p><\/div><\/p>\n There is nobody else here, I have the pick of the spots. Even though I know the sun doesn’t set until 5:30-ish, it has already dipped behind (near) Mt Whitney<\/strong> at 4:15, so I can sit out in the open and take in the majestic, vast valley for over an hour without my usual worry about shade and sun glare.<\/p>\n The campground is very close to the edge of Independence<\/strong>, and this must be the industrial edge of town. There are occasional loud bangs that sound to me like then the dumpster truck grabs the dumpster in its prongs and shakes the f— out of it. Not ideal for the image of getting close to nature, but whatever it is it stops at 5.<\/p>\n Looking north up the valley you can see for a long, long way – probably not really all the way to Bishop, but it seems like it. After dark that means you can see the headlights and taillights of the trucks and cars blasting up 395 for an incredible distance.<\/p>\n What a beautiful spot in the morning. Gurgling brook 12′ away, clear, endless vistas. I also have phone bars.<\/p>\n There is a nice enough sounding diner in Independence, but I press on to the Lone Pine Bistro<\/strong> because it has wifi. Turned out to be a great spot. Good wifi, nice apple fritter, a roast beef sando to go that was really good as it turned out,<\/p>\n Next stop the Interagency Visitors Center<\/strong>, one of my favorite places! Main attraction is an epic relief map of the whole region from Reno to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n Then the very, very pretty drive through the Panamint Range<\/strong> to Death Valley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Stovepipe Wells Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Finally staying here after driving past so many times. Quite hot even in mid-October. It's not open in the summer it's so hot.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n Just a big parking lot with a bathroom at one end. there is also a store and oh glory, a nice bar (and restaurant) across the road.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n Saturday night in February. It is (unseasonably?) hot: 77° at 4:30. Approaching from the west, it is a 4,500' drop and many (18?) miles of road in a more or less straight line from the pass to the edge of the valley floor, which is here! \r<\/p>\n Coming down, it appears crowded and unusually busy from a distance, yet there are plenty of spaces when you get right down to it. I am very stoked to be here.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> My nomination for “Camping event most like Burning Man<\/em>“. The weather this evening is the incarnation of mildness. The campground, which is after all just a large gravel lot graded into the northwest part\u00a0of Death Valley, has lots of tents, way more than can set up in the official tent area in the brush around the edges.\u00a0So there are tens of tents set up out in the middle of the parking lot, most with a modest\u00a0mid-sized sedan parked next to it.. There are a couple of\u00a0large\u00a0groups:\u00a0college students on I’m guessing a field trip and young boys\u00a0who appear to be from some kind of institution. There is a real nice party vibe. I’m just sitting here typing, and constantly folks shuffling past, shoes noisy on the gravel.<\/p>\n The college kids all went off in a group out the northeast corner of the campground. Leaving the next day the signs reminded me that there are sand dunes nearby. That would ahve been pretty rad, walking the sand dunes by moonlight. Note for next time ….<\/p>\n I had a nice beer and interesting conversation in the very busy lodge – the reason I made a point of being here on Saturday. Now that I am back at the campsite, I am loving the busyness quite a bit less. It is actually pretty noisy and bothersome as a matter of fact.<\/p>\n Busyness is even more\u00a0annoying this morning. The noise of car doors shutting has been more or less constant since sunrise. A never ending\u00a0stream of 12 year old boys is walking back and forth from their jamboree to the bathroom.<\/p>\n It has become clear that making a point of being here on Saturday night is an EPIC FAIL. There are so f—king many people that every task of the day is a small drama. Getting coffee at the general store is a six person line.<\/p>\n There are some nice fields of yellow wildflowers along the road. I find out later that if I had taken the 2.5 hour detour to Badwater<\/strong> I would have seen an epic, once in a decade (not since the last big El Nino) bloom. Not just yellow, but carpets of purple flowers and white flowers. Oh well, I really enjoyed the flowers I did see…<\/p>\n I press on to the Visitors Center<\/strong> to ask my questions. There is congestion in the parking lot, then another line. Then onward a few hundred yards to hang out at Furnace Creek<\/strong>. I always enjoy the holiday vibe\u00a0here, not to mention that it’s a mini hot spot\u00a0for phone bars<\/em> – a decent 3G (not 4G!) connection for about a half-mile radius.<\/p>\n This is the only time I will have\u00a0phone bars from\u00a0Saturday morning in Lone Pine to\u00a0Monday afternoon when I reach US 95 at Amargosa<\/strong> – a coupla hundred miles square of phone bar-less emptiness. I pick up a little All Star Game news, fire off a few useless Facebook comments, and learn that Justice Scalia died. I really disliked that man, both for his\u00a0personal style and even more as a hypocritical windbag of a throwback Justice. Without the benefit of network talking heads, my own analysis is that this is pretty awesome for the judicial health of our nation – a 4-4 tie except when Kennedy goes with the good guy and gals. Also will turn up the heat on this issue in the election, which I believe will be good for the good guys..<\/p>\n The drive was more interesting than usual because the Amargosa River<\/strong> is actually running!<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Tecopa Hot Springs<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Odd place. Separate bathhouses for men and women, nudity required. Camping is available in glorified parking lot across the road overlooking the settlement pond. \r<\/p>\n No potable water, must drive a couple of miles for that. Really interesting salt flats area at the edge of town. In the last couple of years a pair of restaurants have opened. And breweries!\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n This place is starting to get popular. Every time there are a few more rules. But every time I manage to have a pretty sweet stay notwithstanding. The place I used to park is now for big RVs, the good spots down in the trees are taken, but the cool stoner dude at check-in said it was OK to park right along the edge, so that's where I happily am, listening to the frogs bellow.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n So many changes:<\/p>\n Back at my spot I bounced back to my normal good mood quickly – ate my sando from Lone Pine and drank my Safeway\u00a0red wine, then went to hang out with the guys at the men’s\u00a0tubs. It’s not nearly as crowded as I thought it would be. Then it occurs to me that a\u00a0segregated-by-sex hot tubs place is probably NOT the ticket for Valentine’s Day!<\/p>\n It’s very windy this morning. Come to think of it it’s often\u00a0very windy here. The first time I slept in my truck was here, because it was so windy it was impossible to set up my tent. Anyway, this particular parking spot on the edge turns out to be the best ever; my favorite of all, with it’s amazing sunset vista and the sound of the bullfrogs all night.<\/p>\n I did my morning soak, there was a talkative old dude there this morning. It’s funny, I learn a lot from locals when I talk to them, but I a send out a ‘leave me alone’ vibe and mostly avoid\u00a0getting into conversations. I guess I’m just a snob.<\/p>\n First fifty or so miles I am retracing yesterday’s drive. Right out side Tecopa I stop at the alkali flats. Turns out there is a\u00a0swimmable\u00a0natural hot pool here! Cool thing to know about for the future.<\/p>\n Back through Death Valley Junction<\/strong>, then instead of blasting straight on to US 95<\/strong> I decide to take the short detour to\u00a0Ash Meadows<\/strong>.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Ash Meadow NWR<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n very remote, no camping nearby, not like the NWRs I'm used to. Lotta driving to individual cool little habitats tucked away, one big pond and a couple of really beautiful cold springs. <\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n The road is very washboardy in spots.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n This place has really upped it's game since the last time I was here. There is a new Visitors Center with very state of the art exhibits, and a new boardwalk to the beautiful freshwater spring.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n There is a lot of dusty and bumpy driving through dusty and boring terrain, but the reward is a couple of enchanting freshwater spring areas, I went to the one called King’s Pool<\/strong>\u00a0last time. It was pretty amazing, but getting to it\u00a0requires driving\u00a0yet more dusty and bumpy gravel roads (Point of Rocks Road<\/strong>). So I eschewed that side trip\u00a0this time and\u00a0went to Crystal Spring<\/strong>, also very awesome but with the advantage of being\u00a0right\u00a0behind the brand new\u00a0Visitors Center<\/strong>. on a brand new boardwalk. There are some real interesting exhibits, turns out the area was this close to becoming a luxury resort community back in the 80’s, but the discover of a\u00a0unique desert pupfish in the beautiful springs gave the feds the ammunition to stop it, then the area became the wildlife refuge four years later. e locals against the feds,A perfect resolution\u00a0from my p.o.v., but there are the kinds of things that embitter the locals against the feds.<\/p>\n I had hopes of eating at the wifi cafe in Beatty<\/strong>, but that was a FAIL. It was closed, and it was too late in the day anyway. Good thing I still have leftover chicken and potato salad from Bishop.<\/p>\n Tonight’s stop will be Bailey’s Hot Springs.\u00a0<\/strong>I stayed here once\u00a0years ago, and have good memories of it.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Bailey's Hot Springs<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n funky little place, needs a LOT of maintenance, but their wifi was pretty good.. They have three private bathhouses: \r<\/p>\n 1 - pleasantly warm, \r<\/p>\n 2 - hot (> 100)\r<\/p>\n 3 - very hot. (> 104)\r<\/p>\n So if the one you want is in use you're outta luck until whoever's inside has had their fill.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n The pools seemed hotter to me - the medium seemed like 104 and the hot like 107-8 ... your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p><\/div> I had to wait a while for the hottest\u00a0tub, but other than that I\u2019m having a pretty good time. The hottest tub was to me, very hot, like the Dome Pool at Sierra or just a notch below the Meditation Pool at Harbin – that is the hottest water I’ve ever been able to stand being in.<\/p>\n I’m up at 9-ish, very good for me. All three tub keys are open for my choosing, so I hit medium then the\u00a0warm. \u00a0Warm is actually hot enough.<\/p>\n I backtrack to Beatty for breakfast, to that wifi cafe. Very unusual for me to go backwards, but it’s the choice between a ten minute drive to breakfast at a good sounding spot or an hour and a half drive to an average\u00a0sounding spot. I enjoy Gema’s Cafe<\/strong>, a couple of earnest and eager to please Hispanic ladies. They had good wifi.<\/p>\n As I’m driving north I notice on the map a possible alternate route. I have just enough\u00a0phone bars to ask Maps about it, and it turns out to be only a few miles and 15 minutes longer. I will miss Goldfield (interesting) and Tonopah (kind of depressing), but I will see entirely new countryside. Let’s do it!<\/p>\n It’s fun. There is a well-constructed stone ghost town called Palmyra<\/strong> right on the road. If I kept on this road it would be the back road to Lee Vining, the road that runs alone the north side of Mono Lake<\/strong> that you can see from 395. There are great views of the mighty Sierras over here. Same view I had for two days last Thursday, but it’s great to see it again.<\/p>\n I rejoin 95 North, and soon enough (desert time – actually another 80 miles!) I am Hawthorne<\/strong>., home of some kind of really gigantic military ammunition dump. Shop at the Safeway, eat a little at the McD’s to download podcasts, then onward to Walker Lake<\/strong> to find my campsite.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Sportsman's Beach Walker Lake<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Pretty, spectacular view down the length of Walker Lake. You can hear the neverending semis on US 95, but they are pretty far up the hill.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n You come to the main campground first. I find out later this is the only unlocked bathroom. It's nice enough, but the sites are not level. After you wind down a few more hundred feet, past the boat ramp, there are more camp sites, a couple of which are nice and level. If only the bathroom door was unlocked...<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n Pretty, spectacular view down the length of Walker Lake. You can hear the neverending semis on US 95, but they are pretty far up the hill.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n You come to the main campground first. I find out later this is the only unlocked bathroom. It's nice enough, but the sites are not level. After you wind down a few more hundred feet, past the boat ramp, there are more camp sites, a couple of which are nice and level. If only the bathroom door was unlocked...<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I am pretty sure you could camp almost anywhere along here, but I go to the ofificial site, Sportsman’s Beach.<\/p>\n It is almost full moon, and the moonlight is very bright. It is so mild that I take off for a fun little moonlight walk. I bushwhack down to the shoreline and head right (west), because I remember that the boat launch is down there somewhere. I had a fun little mini-adventure. As it got later there would be times where there were no trucks on the highway in seeing or hearing distance, then the silence would be magical.<\/p>\n Cloudy and just beautiful here looking over the placid lake.<\/p>\n Wow, just two hours after I wrote that word “placid”,\u00a0it’s still beautiful, but not placid any more. The wind is noticeably rocking the van. Being mellow\u00a0in the lawn chair is no longer an option. I do have phone bars, so I check out\u00a0the weather forecast and see that there\u00a0are\u00a0high wind advisories all the way to Reno, and rain\/snow for the next couple of days for the whole region … so … time to pack it in and go home!<\/p>\n Home is really only about two hours away. Fallon<\/strong> is one hour away, so I batten down the van, head up the hill and north to Fallon and a nice\u00a0breakfast. Fallon is the intersection of US 50 and US 95. I’ve never before\u00a0gotten off the highways and explored, but I did today, and gosh, this place is a dusty, gritty armpit of a town! They seem to have not heard about wifi. The only place in town I could find that had it was McDonald’s, so I had a hot fudge sundae to chase my sausage and eggs (hmmm) and stocked up on podcasts for the trip home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I get on the road\u00a0a little before noon – pretty good for me – return library books and pick up a salad and sando, and I’m on the road! Diesel in Carson City\u00a0–\u00a0$1.89\/gal – I never thought I would\u00a0see gas … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Friday<\/a><\/h3><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Saturday<\/a><\/h3>
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<\/a>Sunday<\/a><\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Monday<\/a><\/h3><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Tuesday<\/a><\/h3><\/p>\n
<\/a>Wednesday<\/a><\/h3>\n