May 7, 2013 - Lone Pine, Alabama Hills and New Friends

May 7, 2013 – Lone Pine, Alabama Hills, Still Life Café Yesterday, we drove 250 miles out of our way to avoid the high twists and turns and 13 mile 9% descents and ascents of the road out of Death Valley. Instead, though there were some long hills, going east was the way to go. Unfortunately, instead of 81 miles, we traveled 350 miles to Lone Pine, California; in the high desert valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Lone Pine is home to Mt. Whitney, highest peak in the contiguous United States and, it would have been nice to see it but,...

May 1, 2013 - day 7 lone pine

day 7 our anniversary we decided to get high again, really high and as kids we both like to slad on hills so we went to the hills for that, these hills we very popular in our youth western tv days ie: roy rogers and dale evens, gene autery, lone ranger and tonto, cisco kid and poncho, tom mix, (names spelling???) only a few, they all shot some of their shows in these hills... so, enjoy or photos and videos (having a hard time uploading videos)... our...

Apr 30, 2013 - day 6 lone pine

our drive from bakersfield to lone pine, ca., we went thru desert, lots of it, passes with very heavy winds which lasted all night... when you take a trip as we do, you should not stay more than a few days on you first night out because it takes a few days to get ajusted to travel...stopping just makes for reajustment... in such a small camper it is a rearrangement game everyday/stop... enjoy our photos... our day 6 photos/videos: (lots of photos/videos, you know me...)...

Apr 14, 2013 - Mt. Whitney and Manzanar War Relocation Ctr

Saturday our plan was to see the local sights and recover from our trip out of the “Valley of Death”, but the Good Lord was still looking out for us as we noticed we had a bad tire on the passenger side of the trailer. The same side as we had a problem last fall. Different tire but we could see cords showing through on the inside of the tire. Had the tire blown the day before, we could have had an even more harrowing experience than we did have. The tire was one we had bought on our way out of Alaska 3 years ago. Unfortunately to replace it...

Apr 13, 2013 - Yea, though I walked through the Valley of Death

We entered the Valley of Death Friday morning following a romantic dinner cruise on Lake Meade the night before. We really had a good time and the sunset was fantastic. I plied Jean with wine, moonlight over the water, I even whispered sweet nothings in her ear, and I got just what I had given; sweet nothings. (But the food was good). The winds were light and temps were cool as we entered into the valley. Quickly it became clear why they call the place Death Valley. As you can see from the pictures, the road was narrow, and there is little...

Nov 2, 2012 - Las Vegas to Death Valley to Lone Pine

After packing up and loading the car we visited Fremont Street which is the original and oldest part of Las Vegas. The main street is a pedestrian mall with all sorts of souvenir vendors and tourist traps surrounded with tacky casinos advertising topless girls and strip shows. This is the real Sin City. It is easy to see how Las Vegas got started and developed its reputation until the larger companies developed the well known strip with all the newer casinos and toned it down. The Gold and Silver Pawn shop from foxtel is here also but we...

Oct 26, 2012 - Horseshoe Meadow & Alabama Hills

Today Larry & Alyce picked us up to take us to see the Alabama Hills. When David asked Larry where the switchback road on the mountain across from us went, they took us up the road to Horseshoe Meadow. Wow - what a road & magnificent views! We had a short hike from where we parked out to Horseshoe Meadow. It's so great to be in the mountains again! When we came down from Horseshoe Meadow we took the tour of the Alabama Hills we had started out to do. Lots of movies have been made in the Alabama Hills. Roy Rogers first starring feature,...

Oct 25, 2012 - Carson City, NV - Lone Pine, CA

Today we drove down the eastern side of the Sierras from Carson City, NV, to Lone Pine, CA. We're probably prejudiced because we grew up in this area, but we think the eastern Sierra has some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere. The first winter storm was still hanging around the high country, but we had great weather for our drive. We grew up & graduated from high school in Bishop, CA. Mt. Tom was part of our daily view. We stopped in Bishop to have lunch at Jack's Restaurant (used to be called Jack's Waffle Shop) & to buy Honi Squaw...

Jun 7, 2012 - Lone Pine CA

Today was a long day in the Jeepster, but what we saw made it worthwhile. We pulled out of the campground at 8:45 and headed east from Lone Pine for the predicted 2 hour trip to Death Valley. It was about 65° when we pulled out and that was a number we would be wishing for a couple hours later. The trip east started along the base of the Inyo Mountains, then up across them until we got to a scenic pullout overlooking the valley. It was neat, but it was not the Valley of Death that we were looking for, it was actually the Panamint Valley...

Jun 6, 2012 - Lone Pine CA

Not much to report today as it was a travel day. We left Carson City at 9:30 and jumped back onto Hwy. 395 for the trip to the Boulder Creek RV Resort in Lone Pine CA. A decent little place except for the dust – the majority of the roads in the park are dirt so the dust is everywhere, but there are F-18’s flying overhead and the scenery is terrific so it’s tolerable. We must have climbed 4 or 5 summits today on the way here, which was a pretty good test of the new transmission fluid and it seemed fine. We headed south past Minden and Topaz...

May 7, 2012 - Lone Pine, California

5/7 – 5/11 Before leaving Ridgecrest we drove to the US Navel Museum of Armament and Technology at the China Lake Navy base. This is the largest Navy base in the world and is used for weapons testing, mostly of the missile variety. At the museum we were met by our tour guide, a World War II veteran and an employee of the base for 44 years. He gave a great tour with interesting history lessons thrown in. We also went to the fairgrounds to dump our tanks before we left the area. We bring this up because of the unique dumpsite the fairgrounds...

Mar 31, 2012 - Blown to Lone Pine

Well, we didn't win the Mega Millions. But, you know, there isn't anything we would buy with a million dollars that could make us more happy than we are right now. I don't believe that many people can say that during their lifetimes. -- I misspoke yesterday when I said we were staying in beautiful downtown Barstow. Actually, we were in beautiful downtown Daggett, which is a suburb of Barstow, about five miles down the road. Yesterday afternoon, we were all scared out of our wits when several sonic booms went off. Park management said it was...