Tag: Highway 395

On the Road, Part I

I have no idea how many parts this little saga will contain. At least two based on the title.

Last year we started what was supposed to be a three week road trip, or maybe a two week road trip, through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, before returning to California. However, post-vaccination Covid caught up with us, and we were grounded until declared “safe.” I felt like a naughty child!

Somewhere on Hwy 395

So, we are back on the road, and it is an odd experience. Travel actually requires a certain mindset, a patience with developing new routines while daily ones at home vanish. A road trip means sitting in a car for hours at a time. Josh the Esposo loves to drive, so I sit casually by, and observe the world flying by me. My camera is at hand, set to a fast exposure to catch things as they fly by on the roadside. Sometimes I get good ones. Sometimes I don’t get good ones. In between I am knitting mindlessly on a circular sweater that will be steeked upon my return.

What I do get are memories of places that are beautiful or unreal in my current reality. The big one is water on the ground! As our water vanishes in the Southwest, it just hangs out in places like Oregon and Wisconsin and Montana. Rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds. The luxury of a 10 minute shower as opposed to the Navy shower.

The Goodman House B&B in Chico, CA

This trip is one to Wisconsin to visit my younger brother, Kevin, and his wife Suzi. We have driven about 2500 miles (4025 km) to go half way across the country along a northern route. We started in the Los Angeles area, where we live, and drove 8.5 hours to Chico in Northern California. Perhaps a last stay in our beloved Goodman House B&B as the owners plan to sell – time to retire from the business. Dinner at the Sierra Nevada Brewery.

Local Beer is Good!

You can look up all these places if you want, but suffice it to say that Chico is a beautiful town, with new sections and old, trees and such that make it a charming place to visit and a pleasant place to walk around.

Street Scene in Chico – Trees and Shade

I did walk around the morning we were to leave for Bend, Oregon, where one of my oldest friends lives.

Morning Flowers

Tourist Stop: Bodie, California

For what it’s worth, Josh and I went up Highway 395 to see what the Eastern Sierras has to hold. I’ve never been up there.

We decided to visit Bodie, the old silver-mining ghost town in the high desert of eastern California. It was amazing – not so much that it was a ghost town, but that at one point, it wasn’t a ghost town.  The road in is about 13 miles long, the first 10 of which have been recently blacktopped, but the last 3 of which are gravel and washboard.  We were there under a noonday sun.

Historically, about 5% of the original buildings remain, many of which had been destroyed by a fire sometime ago (1920s??).  While it is rather desolate and barren, visiting and learning a bit of its history, you are amazed to see the civilization of an age past come to life.

Click on the images below for the slideshow!

Tourist Stop: Bodie, California

On the Road to Bodie

For what it’s worth, Josh and I went up Highway 395 to see what the Eastern Sierras has to hold. I’ve never been up there.

High Noon in the High Desert

We decided to visit Bodie, the old silver-mining ghost town. It was amazing – not so much that it was a ghost town, but that at one point, it wasn’t a ghost town.The road in is about 13 miles long, the first 10 of which have been recently blacktopped, but the last 3 of which are gravel and washboard.  We were there under a noonday sun. Historically, about 5% of the original buildings remain, many of which had been destroyed by a fire sometime ago (1920s??).  While it is rather desolate and barren, visiting and learning a bit of its history, you are amazed to see the civilization of an age past come to life.

Click on the images below for the slideshow!

A View to Mono Lake

A View to Mono Lake

We spent the last week up in the area of Mammoth Lakes, located on the eastern slope of the Sierras, up Highway 395.  Can you believe I have never been up that road?!?

We hiked and ate and took pictures and saw the sites.  The weather was superb.  We had to adjust from living at 800 feet above sea level to going up to 8000 feet and higher – shortness of breath (SOB!), dry eyes and nose, and so on.  We got comfortable at 8000, but moving up, like in walking uphill, became a challenge at times, so we would rest and then continue.  This gave for a lot of wonderful opportunities to look around, take in a breath of sage and pine, and snap away.

This view of Mono Lake is from the Parker Lake Trail, and is created from a montage of about 8 images.  Click on the image for a bigger version.