Tufas

We used up most of our battery capacity last night.  It got down to 23 degrees and, in addition to the furnace running nearly all night, we had to use the tank heaters to keep the waste tanks from freezing.  We’re trying to get away from the cold, but it doesn’t help that this camp site is at 7000 feet in elevation.  Mountains and cold just go together.

After breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon we readied the RV for takeoff and drove the half-mile to the little parking area for the hot spring.  The trail to the hot spring was short but it was very steep and rocky, requiring utmost care to keep from slipping down the slope.  A couple of the spots on the trail were wet, and those areas had frozen overnight. At the bottom, we met one person just getting out, but the area was otherwise empty.  So we have this popular place all to ourselves.

We stripped to our bathing suits, which soon started us shivering because it was still below freezing outside.  We eased into the largest pool, which was perhaps 18 inches deep.  The cold was soon forgotten.  This was wonderful!  The water was quite hot, but still tolerable, and sitting in that water right next to the river was a true bucket-list experience.

We soaked in bliss for perhaps a half hour and then reluctantly got up to leave.  We could probably have stayed here all day.  To climb back up to the RV, I only put my shoes and my T-shirt on.  The below-freezing temperatures didn’t bother me at all, even all soaking wet.

We bumped our way back to the main road, wondering how many screws were coming loose because of this washboard road.  I’ll have to tighten then all later.

It was perhaps a half-hour drive to our next top, Mono Lake.  This is an enormous saline lake on the western side of the Great Basin, a sister lake and somewhat similar to the more familiar Great Salt Lake in Utah.  We stopped first at the visitor center, which was closed for the season, and took a hike in Lee Vining Canyon.  Sunshine and rapidly warming temperatures made for a beautiful hike, and the fall colors here are at their peak. Not the brilliant hues seen in Michigan, but still beautiful with the mountains as a backdrop.

We drove around to the south side of the lake, to an area where the tufas can be seen.  Ever heard of a “tufa”?  Me neither, before today.  Before the lake level dropped, these were formed when fresh water springs bubbled up into the lake.  The minerals in the fresh and salt waters reacted to form these towers under water.  When the lake level dropped, these were exposed, creating an other-worldly landscape worthy of a Star Trek discovery.

This area is also very popular and people are willing to drive a mile down a very bumpy road to get here.  At a nearby, less well-known area, a series of sand formations can be seen.  About two to three feet high, these are well hidden if you don’t know where to look.  We can thank Deb’s guidebook for putting us onto this one.

Another half-hour or so down the road and another few miles of washboard dirt road revealed another geological feature:  A boiling spring next to a river that is popular with anglers.  You can’t go in or even near this one, but the colors and the terrain around this are really interesting.  There are even nearby fissures in the ground that breathe steam.  Super cool.

There were strict warnings about going near this because of the temperatures and the unstable ground.  So pictures had to be taken with a long lens.  However, there was no rules or warnings about how near a drone could get, so I took a few pictures overhead with the drone.

The roads into these places give new meaning to the term “slow travel”. In this case, it’s literally slow, averaging about five miles per hour.  Worth it, however, if you have the time.

We stopped in the town of Bishop, as Deb spotted a bakery she wanted to visit.  Erick Schat’s Bakery, which is a Dutch bakery, is crammed full of all sorts of delectables and we came away with a large cinnamon roll for tomorrow’s breakfast and some cheese breadsticks which were used for today’s dinner.

The building was very Dutch looking, a lot of the stuff inside was very Dutch, but I think the predominant language was Spanish.  I think we were the only Dutch looking people in the store.

Dinner was meatballs in red sauce with the breadsticks instead of spaghetti noodles.  It was delicious.

Bishop is a town that reminded us a lot of Moab, Utah.  Touristy, outdoorsy, kind of a gateway to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Lots of camper vans and people that look like they have been on the trail for a week or so; that dusty, tired look.  Perhaps that describes us also.  The town caters to us transients, with ample RV parking and gas stations that have RV dump stations in the back.  We took advantage of all of these.

We left town in the darkness, traveling for an hour south until Lone Pine, where we stopped to camp for the night.  All the dispersed camp sites west of town appeared to be taken (it’s the weekend, after all), so we finally took the first available site at the Tuttle Creek Campground.  Much warmer here due to the lower elevation.  We made 199 miles today.