Day 280: Really, Really Old Trees

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Ben

Another beautiful day in the Sierras:

To get the RV level on this slope last night, we unhitched and lowered the front almost to the ground:

View from the roof of the RV:

We drove back into Independence and visited the Eastern California Museum:

The museum has an extensive collection of artifacts from Manzanar:

There was also a display about the aqueduct that dried up the Owens Valley to slake the thirst of Los Angeles:

Lots of other old stuff, like medicine bottles and vacuum tubes:

The other side of the museum houses an Indian beadwork and basket weaving display:

There was a sizeable outdoor collection as well:

On the way out of town, we briefly visited the historic courthouse. A county employee showed us the 1890s court room upstairs, which had metal hoops under each seat to store one’s hat:

Continuing North, we visited the Whitney Fish Hatchery. A forest fire and flood a few years ago destroyed the watershed, so now the hatchery is operated solely as a visitor center:

Someday these little guys will be released into the pond:

Feeding the fish outside:

Continuing North, we dropped off the RV in Big Pine and followed the sinuous ascent to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest about 25 miles out of town, home to the world’s longest lived individual organisms, the Bristlecone Pines, some of which are over 4,700 years old. The visitor center, at 10,000 feet, is not yet open for the season:

This tree was over 3,200 years old when it died in the late 1670s:

We climbed the trail:

View of the Sierras from our vantage point on the other side of Owen’s Valley:

I know, you’re thinking “Isn’t that Quartzite in the foreground? That’s funny, ‘cause you’ve visited Quartzsite”:

A little snow was present:

Here’s a panorama of the Sierras:

We returned to Big Pine, hitched up the RV, and drove to Bishop. We only intended to stop for groceries, but seeing that there were 20 or so RVs parked in the grocery store lot, we decided to spend the night here ourselves.

Day 279: North to Manzanar

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Ben

This morning we did laundry and shopping in Lone Pine. M and B tried out the local skate park:

We drove north to Manzanar, one of the dozen or so detention camps built to imprison over 100,000 Japanese Americans for the duration of World War II. You know, because they might spy for Japan or something. Just in case.

This was the second detention camp we’ve visited. We visited Heart Mountain in the summer of 2011.

The only thing more shocking than America violating its own constitution to detain its own citizens based solely on their ethnicity is the fact that most Americans today don’t even know this happened.

The visitor center listed the names of those detained here:

There were dozens of blocks, each containing 14 barracks, a men’s and women’s toilet building, and a mess hall. Today two barracks and a mess hall in one block are the only remaining buildings at Manzanar:

The barracks were just tar paper over plywood. Each barracks was divided into four rooms which housed up to eight people:

The prisoners at Manzanar built their own social hall which was converted into the visitor center:

Some blocks built community gardens, which no longer have water running through them:

The West side of the camp has a memorial obelisk at the inmate cemetery:

After the kids received their Junior Ranger badges, we continued North to Independence where we are parked just off of Onion Valley road just a bit out of town:

Onion Valley is the hardest cycling climb in California, but I’m still sore from Horseshoe Meadows on Monday, so I doubt I’ll attempt the climb tomorrow. See the trip map for today’s drive.

Day 278: Hors and Hors of fun

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Ben

This morning I rode to the top of Horseshoe Meadows, another Hors Categorie climb, the 2nd hardest cycling climb in California and the fourth hardest climb in the US. It was 6,400 feet of vertical over 22 miles. I rode down from our campsite to town to start the climb:

At mile 22, with 6,100 feet of non-stop vertical climbing behind me, I broke a spoke:

Here’s the climb data up until the spoke broke:

I didn’t feel comfortable going down the mountain with a broken spoke, so Trish came up with the truck. Here I am setting out to complete the last couple miles of the climb:

We met up at the top of the climb and went for a hike at 10,000 feet in the Sierras. B brought her fancy walking stick:

We played in the snow a bit:

We all drove down together. On the drive down, I kept saying “wow, I rode up this?”

At sunset we set out to find a Letterbox:

We successfully found it and did the stamping:

Today’s switchbacks can be seen in the distance:

Tonight we used our homemade outdoor kitchen for the first time:

And Trish made a new letterboxing stamp:

I’m exhausted, off to bed!

Day 277: The Wild Winds of the Alabama Hills

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Ben

Shabbos was beautiful and relaxing in the Alabama Hills. In the afternoon, it started to get quite windy. Saturday night’s forecast called for gusts up to 80 miles per hour. We could see that the large living room slide was being pushed in along the top edge by the wind. I was concerned that this deflection could bend the hydraulics and rails that drive the slide, so we brought in the bunkhouse and living room slides and had M bring in his mattress and sleep in the kitchen and B slept on the living room couch.

None of us got very much sleep last night with the RV being blown around. In the morning, I hitched the RV to the truck to insure that the winds couldn’t snap off the forward landing gear.

Since we couldn’t go outside, we did homeschool. By the afternoon, the winds eased a bit and we could go outside:

Trish did some more work on her quilt made from scraps of the kids’ worn out clothing:

Day 275: Another day in the Alabama Hills

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Ben

After a bit of homeschooling, we went into town for groceries and to get a document notarized. We also checked out some books from the one room library in town.

In the afternoon, we did some more homeschool, then got ready for Shabbos. M found a nice afternoon reading spot:

Good Shabbos from the Alabama Hills!