Joshua Tree National Park

From Lone Pine, we moved south to Yucca Valley, right outside of Joshua Tree National Park. The first day, I took Jan and Kathy to my favorite hike in the park, Wall Street Mill. It starts out with a beautiful stroll through the Joshua Trees.

After a while, off to the left you can see an old pink house.

The fireplace inside.

It even has my initials carved into the outside of the house, but I promise I didn't do it.

And wow, one of the best pieces of rusty stuff is nearby.

Back on the trail, we find a monument that the owner of the property, William Keys, put up after he killed Worth Bagley in a gunfight in 1943. Keys went to jail, but was later pardoned.

Uh-oh, distracted again...

After about a mile, we got to Wall Street Mill, operated by Keys sporadically from 1930-1966, processing gold ore from his mine and the mines of others.

I snuck inside to get a peek. It was really interesting...

After that hike, we did another short hike to Barker Dam.

It was built in the early 1900s by ranchers needing water for their stock.

On the way back to the car, we went by the "Disney Petroglyphs," painted over and ruined by a movie company filming here. (We won't mention which one...)

The only wildlife we saw was this cute little Katydid. I can't believe how much it looks like a leaf!

More of Lone Pine

One day at Lone Pine, CA we went to visit Manzanar, which was a military-style camp where Japanese-Americans were detained during World War II. Only a few of the buildings remain, but this is what it looked like then.

A couple of the buildings that remain have some very good exhibits showing what life was like during the war. It was very sad, but interesting.

Nearby is a cemetery where those that passed away are buried.

After our Manzanar tour, we went on a 4-wheel drive trip through an old mine nearby. Yes, we are going in there!

We made it! We went about a half mile into the mine.

The obligatory WIN photo!

Afterwards, Paul decided to be even more daring, going up that thin strip on the right. I got out to take pictures. Well, that was my wimpy excuse...

We were conveniently in Lone Pine during their annual Film Festival. On the last day of the Festival, we all lined up for the parade.

We saw Zorro -

And Hopalong Cassidy!

We were sitting right across from the guys with the guns, and a lot of shooting occurred. I was a little worried that their aim would be off...

Lone Pine - Another Beautiful Place on Hwy 395

From Bishop, we moved south to Lone Pine, CA. Tuttle Creek BLM Campground is another of my favorites.

Lots of movies were filmed near here, so we visited the Lone Pine Film History Museum. This dentist's carriage with a big tooth on top was one of my favorites.

I also loved this quilt.

Many cowboys filmed movies here in the Alabama Hills.

There are a couple other small museums in town, where I found lots of "rusty stuff."

While here, we did the Arch Loop hike in the Alabama Hills, where we saw several arches.

Mobius Arch is the biggie, and we got almost everyone together for a photo.

If you get the right angle, you can frame Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48, in the arch.

It was a beautiful hike!

We also did a 4-wheel drive through the Alabama Hills.

More of One of My Favorite Places

We had hurried down to Bishop, CA because of the cold weather, but it warmed up a bit, so one day we took a day trip back up the hill to hike around Convict Lake.

The part of the trail that goes over the creek that feeds the lake was a little hairy...

But the views were outstanding!

Wow!

Heading back to where we started.

Twice a year, Bishop has a huge "Choo Choo Swap Meet," which benefits the local railroad museum. We happened to be there at just the right time!

They also had a big car show going on.

This was my favorite, because it was really rusty, and had some very clever details.

Including a "Used Beer Depository!"

When in Bishop, the place to eat is Schat's Bakery. Yummy! We ate lunch there a couple times.

On another day, we went on a very long drive to see the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.

The branches look like bottle brushes.

This is the biggest one we saw, but not the oldest. It's only 2000 years old... The oldest one is 4800 years old! But they wouldn't tell us where it is. It's a secret...

Even the dead ones stay around for a very long time. Some of the dead ones died 2000 years ago. Because the wood is so dense, they don't disintegrate.

The road there and back goes through some very barren land, but we had a great fun day!

Headed Down Hwy 395 - Another of My Favorite Places!

From Susanville, we headed over to Hwy 395, which we will follow down through California. Our first stop was the Minden/Tahoe Airport, which has an RV lot where you can stay for $10 a night. I didn't really do much except go shopping...

Our next stop was Horton Creek Campground outside of Bishop, CA. Now we're getting to the pretty stuff!

Our first outing was to some of my favorite lakes in the area. We started out at Lake Sabrina. The fall colors were not as good as I've seen in the past, but still pretty impressive.

We walked along the shoreline a little, and posed for an official shot.

Next, we drove the scary road up to North Lake. Looking down, we saw 2 waterfalls in the lower right.

Beautiful North Lake. Even though it was a little windy, we still got a reflection of the mountain in the lake.

And then we drove over to see South Lake. For some reason, this was the best picture I got. Sad...

On the way home, we saw a bunch of people painting the gorgeous scenery.

On another day, we drove back up the hill towards Mammoth Lakes to visit some of the many natural hot springs in the area. We settled on Wild Willy's, because it was the biggest and we could all fit in.

But it wasn't very deep, and Kurt had a hard time doing his laps...