Lone Pine, CA -- Highway 395

Roger here....


Driving along CA 395, paralleling the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and wondering what's up ahead....
(Those of you who know me, know that I knew exactly
what was up ahead.)  Ah, the quaint little town of Lone Pine.  Looks interesting.  Actually, it's a lot more than interesting.

Lone Pine and the adjacent Alabama Hills is the literal capital of the film industry's WESTERNS.

  More than 300 movies  (mostly, but not all, westerns) have been filmed in the Alabama Hills.  Additionally, many of the TV shows that we grew up with (The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers) were shot on location among these amazing red boulders. 


A short list of the stars who performed here include:  John Wayne, Barbara Stanwick, Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Borgnine, Gene Autry, Gregory Peck, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Carey Grant, and, yes, Robert Downey Jr.


We landed in town, by accident, the day of the annual Lone Pine Film Festival.  Although we did not have time to join the festivities (other things to do), the atmosphere was great.  Cowboy hats and boots were the dress of the day.

We spent an entire morning visiting the Lone Pine Film Museum.


After watching a 15-minute film that highlighted the history of film shooting in the Alabama Hills, we wandered from exhibit to exhibit, reliving memories from our childhoods.

Vintage cars, like this one from Humphrey Bogart's High Sierra, saddles, cowboy hats and costumes of the stars were everywhere.  

This stage coach was used in several movies:

Countless movie posters filled every nook and cranny:

Not all films made here were westerns.  The other-worldly looking Alabama Hills lent themselves to a couple of Star Trek movies, the Sci Fi movie Tremors, the classic Gunga Din, and our favorite, The Long, Long Trailer (more on that from Dianne in a later post).  Oh, and the recent Iron Man. 

Highway 395 parallels the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  It goes all the way to Canada.  Even though most of our quality time was spent in Lone Pine (except for the side trip to Death Valley), we did drive sixty miles to Bishop to visit the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) offices, and to stop at the irresistible Schat's Bakkery.

The purpose of our visit to the BLM was to ask how we might be able to spend a few nights in closer proximity to the magnificent mountains to our west.  The visit to Schat's -- well, it was an excuse to go off our diets!

Schat's Bakkery is a wonderland.  The floor space is filled with shelves crammed with freshly-baked breads and counters full of pastries, cookies, doughnuts, and cakes.  There was so much to look at and to savor that it was difficult to make decisions, but we did.

The pastries did not last the day, but the loaf of their famous Sheepherder bread filled our tummies for a week.

On the way back to our campground (Boulder Creek RV Resort), we made our first visit to the Alabama Hills.  Dianne will write more about this wondrous place in another post, but I could not resist showing you a few shots.  

I was like a kid in a candy store climbing from rock to rock.

Dianne even did some climbing.

We will probably be posting three days in a row concerning our exploits in and around Lone Pine.  Dianne already has the next two blogs written, so check back soon.

The whippet picture(s) of the day are entitled:  Whose food is it, anyway?  Jasper and Chaplin evidently think the pork chop should belong to them.

A Day in Death Valley

Roger here....   We are currently staying at the Boulder Creek RV Resort, just outside of Lone Pine, California - a pretty nice place.  Lone Pine sits in the shadows of Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 (14,497 feet).  Just fifty miles away, as the crow flies, or 104 miles of twisty up-and-down roads, as the Toyota drives, lies the lowest point in North America in Death Valley National Park  (minus 282 feet).

Dianne informed me that I was not to drive the car off the side of a cliff, so it took us about two hours to arrive at the furthest point of our over-and-back drive, knowing that we would make all our stops on the return trip.  We stopped 17 miles south of the Furnace Creek 

Visitor Center, just past the lush-looking Furnace Creek Resort.   The first stop - Badwater Basin - the lowest point in North America.  Dianne (posing by a saline pond) and I joined many others on a mile-and-a-half walk into the white, concrete-like bottom of the continent.  It was 120 degrees here ten days ago.  Today it only reached 90 degrees.  What luck!  

Next stop....  The Natural Bridge Trail.  Never mind.  The-mile-and- a-half gravel road to the trail head was so rough, that in order to save the suspension and tires on the Toyota, we turned around after a couple hundred yards.

The next stop was not really a stop.  It was an amazing, one-way, PAVED drive through an area called the Artists' Palette.  The rock formations along the side of the road seemed to intrude into the roadway.  They didn't, of course, but the illusion made the drive seem like an amusement park ride.  Side note... at one point six identical yellow corvettes sped by us while we were parked at a pull-out.  Don't know what that was about, but it made me smile.

The rock colors along the way were like none I have ever seen in a natural setting.  Amazingly, blues, greens, pinks, yellows, black, white, brown and purples all meshed into the barren hills - like the colors of an artist's palette.

The big hike of the day took place at Golden Canyon.  Just beyond the parking area (that was located on a paved road),  armed with hats and plenty of water, we walked into a narrow canyon.  The multi-colored walls rose vertically from the canyon floor.  Many of the walls demonstrated layers of rock were slanting at impossible angles.

I found a rock to climb on.  It was not hard to find one.  It made me happy.

We walked in the canyon for about an hour, and then we moved on.  

Our next stop was the Mesquite Dunes area.  So much fun to climb and descend these giant sand dunes.  Dianne and I love the beach.  Technically, this was not the beach, because there was definitely no water, but the sand sure made it seem so.  

Since I got to climb a rock,  Dianne got to make a snow (sand) angel.  So childish!  She can be embarrassing at times.

Time for the two-hour drive back to the motor home and our menagerie.  We will be dry-camping (camping without electricity and water) at a Forest Service Campground directly beneath Mt. Whitney for the next three days, so we won't be posting for a few days.  When we do, we will let you know about the small, but famous (if you have ever watched a western movie or TV show) town of Lone Pine.  

Read on, because Dianne published a very short blog about our Arizona to California trek, including the agricultural inspection station that confiscated our apples!

In keeping with the desert theme, we have entitled today's Whippet of the Day picture, "Chaplin of Arabia."  He does love his (actually my) blanket.

California Here We Come!

Hi All, Dianne here.  This is a very short post, just to chronicle our trip from Arizona to California.  


The scenery was spectacular in northwest Arizona.  Since we've never been there before, it was all new to us.

On our layover night, I did a little "prep" work on some of our apples.  When we bought a half bushel of apples in New Mexico at Dixon Orchard, we forgot about the agricultural inspection stations at the California border!!


We started eating apples like crazy, but it soon became obvious that we'd never be able to make a dent in our sack before we crossed the California state line.  We looked on line, and, sure enough, it looked like they'd probably be confiscated!

Reading one of my favorite blogs, I saw that Linda (BecausewecanII.net) had a similar dilemma with cucumbers she had bought in Canada before they crossed back into the U.S.  She made pickles!  I'm not that talented, but I do make a good apple pie, so I spent a whole evening (after we drove all day) making apple pie filling and putting it in our freezer.  

This left us with only a partial bag of apples.  Sure enough, the gal at the inspection station explained that since they were "home grown," she'd have to take them.  


Lucky for us, they weren't very busy at the time we went through, so she inspected each one and allowed us to keep 12 of the unblemished ones.  She was really very nice.  She also was glad to hear we were headed for Lone Pine for our first California home base, so we weren't going to be near the agricultural areas.  


The good news is that I now have apple pie filling in my freezer for about four pies!  Heads up to Robyn:  You will be having apple pie for Thanksgiving, and probably Christmas, too!!


Just a heads up for those of you who haven't crossed into California before (like us).  Eat up your produce before you get there!!!

Here's the whippet "picture of the day"  entitled "desert dog."  We had a large desert area to walk the "boys" outside Barstow at the KOA.  Large enough that Jasper was allowed off leash for a short time.

A Train Ride to the Grand Canyon

Hi all, Dianne here.  We drove for two days from Cochiti Lake, NM to our next destination, Williams, Arizona.  The scenery was great the whole time, including the sky.  One of the things Roger and I like about being "out west" is that you can see storms from so far away.  

This photo shows that it looked like we were really driving into something bad, but by the time we got up to it, we just had sprinkles.  I'm sure you folks who live out west take it for granted, but for us, the huge skies and expansive views are new and exciting!

We had reservations at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park. A few months ago, Roger (a/k/a "the planner"), scoped it out, and made reservations for not only the campground, but a day trip by train to the Grand Canyon, and even doggie day care for the boys.

Early the next morning, we walked the boys to the kennel (right at the campground), then made our way to the train depot.  Before loading the train, we were ushered over to a short cowboy show.  Kinda cheezy, but it was fun.  Above is a photo of one of the cowboys after he'd been "shot."

The train ride took just over two hours.  We were entertained en route by a very talented singing cowboy, with guitar and harmonica.  


We had opted out of the Grand Canyon bus tour, so after disembarking the train, Roger and I had about four hours to ourselves. 

Our first stop was a food vendor, where we had a very overpriced lunch of tuna salad sandwiches, chips and cookies out by the rim.  But oh, the view!! 

 When we got our food, the vendor warned us that the local squirrel population was very aggressive.  She wasn't kidding!   One practically ran up my leg to get to my Cheeto's.  I managed to fend mine off, but this squirrel had better luck with someone else's meal.

 Intrepid hikers that we are, we came prepared with our hiking belts, hiking stick, bottled water, and snacks.  Our plan was to walk down the famous Bright Angel trail (dodging mule poop) for just a bit, timing ourselves and allowing twice as much time to get back UP the canyon as it took to go down.  (Going down is the easy part.)

We heeded all the warnings about the altitude and steep climb back uphill. So, we only walked down for about a half hour, thinking it'd take us an hour to get back to the top.  We had a train to catch, after all, and the conductor made it very clear that the train would leave without us if we weren't back in time.

Turns out, even though it was very steep indeed climbing back, and we were huffing and puffing and stopping to catch our breath, we made it back to the top in about the same amount of time as it took us to go down.  That meant we had additional time to kill before heading to the train depot.

We hit a few gift shops, with our big purchase being a 30-cent postcard for our granddaughter, Kaia.  Then we hiked along the rim trail for a bit.

Roger wanted to walk out onto a rock outcropping for me to take his photo.  Notice how far back he stayed from the edge.  He's usually unfazed by heights, but this time he was really creeped out when he looked down, and made a quick trip back to the main trail.  We then watched in horror as a Japanese tourist walked even farther out, and a woman with him wearing high heels walked down a loose-gravel section off the trail to get a better photo of him.  Luckily, she didn't fall over the cliff, but I couldn't bear to watch her.  That really creeped me out!

  One of the displays I found very interesting was samples of the different layers of rock which make up the canyon.  Here's a photo of the polished rock tower along the rim trail to illustrate the different types and ages of rock.  The rock on the bottom layer is some of the oldest exposed rock on earth.

When our four hours were up, we boarded the train for the trip home.  We were entertained by more music, this time from a talented banjo player. 

Then, you guessed it, we had train "robbers" who stopped and boarded the train.  Another cheezy/comic routine ensued, but it was actually funny and fun, and the kids on our train car were fun to watch during our "hold-up."

Roger and I had been to the north rim of the grand canyon before, but this was my first trip to the south rim.  Of course, our photos don't do it justice.  It is truly an awesome place.


We've now made it across the Mojave Desert in California, and we're gearing up for more adventures.  We're going to try to include a "whippet photo of the day" to our blog.  (Thanks to Nellie of "Diary of a Midlife Cruiser" for the photo-of-the-day idea.) 

 Here's the first one, entitled "ghost dog under a blanket."  We think Chaplin was getting into the spirit of the Calico Ghost Town we were camped near outside Barstow!  

RV - the movie - the sequel

Roger here....   This one will be short, but interesting.  It will be funny in about a week, but for right now, it is just interesting.


Dianne and I remember laughing hysterically during the movie, RV, during Robin Williams' first visit to the dump station.  If you saw the movie, you remember when the sewer hose jammed and then blew up like a balloon covering Robin with fecal matter.  Highly unlikely.  Right?  Well, maybe not so much.


We visited the dump station Friday morning, our first stop on the way to Gallup, NM.  I made all the usual dump station connections and pulled the lever to drain the black tank (for non-RVers - the poop-and-pee tank).  I then met Dianne at the back of the motor home to hook up the car while the tank drained -- our usual routine.


THEN, Dianne said "What is that smell?" and ran over to the sewer connection.  She then ran back, looked at me, and said,  "TURN IT OFF!  TURN IT OFF!  TURN IT OFF, NOW!"


The dump station drain had backed up and gallons of liquid crap had gathered in a huge puddle and created a small stream that was flowing down the hill.  I tiptoed around the new stream and made my way to close the lever that stopped the flow.  I said,  "s***!".  Literally.  We would have to report this.  We would have to clean the sewer hose (good to have disposable gloves).  We would have to find another dump station (we had ten days' worth of liquid to dump.  Our former neighbors would not be enjoying their morning coffee outside.


We reported the overflow to a passing campground worker, and then to a park ranger.  The ranger assured us it was not our fault -- that people (I used to be a JH principal, so I knew what "people" he meant) had recently been throwing rocks into the drain so it would back up.  Those stinkers :-)

The only photo here is of the second, and successful, dumping at the other dump station.  Dianne refused to take a picture at the scene of the crime - TMI.   (Way, way, way TMI!! -- D)