May 1: I'm still at June Lake, CA. Since all the back roads are snowed in I had to take a hike off the main road. I walked upslope to a couple of old mine attempts near Silver Lake. I am amazed at the number of holes in the mountains all over the west. Unnumbered souls seeking their own fortune opened many mines only to come up with dry holes. In the afternoon I changed oil in the truck(overdue :={ ) and made a search for firewood. I stopped at the loacal store to buy a celebratory beer(it was payday) and picked up a local beer from Mammoth 395 IPA. This is one of the best beers I've ever had. What is strange/unique is that it contains juniper and sage. These should make an afull taste combination, but in this case it works out fine. This was the warmest day since I got here, it reached the 60s. Yahoo!!
On my hike I continued my search for glacial features. Here is a glacial erratic. This is a rock that has been transported by the glacier and dropped in place when the glacial ice melted. In this case it's a granite rock dropped on metamorphic country rock.
Here is a typical glacial valley. Glacier carved valleys are U shaped, stream cut valleys are V shaped.
Here are the rocks at the upper end of the valley above. Note the light colored rocks below and the dark rocks above. These are all the same rock type. The lower light-colored rocks are those that were scoured/scraped by the glacier. This June Lake glacier was several hunderd feet thick.
May 6: Last few days have been windy and fairly warm. Today was calmer, but cooler. Took a trip to Mammoth for groceries today. Mammoth Lakes has not changed in the last two years. The ski hill(that's what we called them in Wisconsin)is still open, even thought the slopes at June Lake are closed. There is still plenty of snow in the woods and on the north slopes.
I took a drive up to the Tioga Pass(Hwy. 120)two days ago. The pass is closed and the highway department is clearing rocks and snow from the road. It may be quite a while before the road across the Sierras through Yosemite NP will be open. I was able to drive along Lee Vining Creek and do some birding. I stopped at the fishing spot where Valere and Jennifer caught trout in the past(photo below). A trout was even visible in the stream.It brought back good memories of fishing with the kids. I've even had thoughts of buying a fishing license. In the photo below you can see the highway as a line across the far mountain at the lower end of the snow line. Note that south is to the left and that slope has snow, while the north slope on the right side is mostly snow free.
Fishing hole. The snow wasn't there when we caught fish in the summer.
May 9: It's been very windy the past few days. Today the first of two spring storms hit. Clouds appeared in the morning and scattered snow(graupel) joined the wind. The wind has been blowing regularly around 20mph with gusts into the 30s. I've been out in the open sage flats(looking for a sage sparrow)and it's fairly miserable out there. Since the weather here is staying cool and I can't get into any of the high country, I've decided to head toward Oregon when the storms end on Wednesday(12th).
Here's what the weather looks like. Shortly after this photo was taken all the mountains were enveloped in the clouds and snow was falling.
Also, over the past week I've cleaned my Venetian blinds; what a chore. It took days to wipe down each of those horizontal slats. There is a total of seven windows and one of them is BIG. They were very dirty and badly needed the work. Now to fix the toilet...
May 10: What a day! The "normal" wind was blowing at around 30mph off the lake. There were gusts up to 50mph and the big pines were swaying wildly. The trailer was constantly being buffeted by the wind. To top things off it snowed most of the day. Mostly the snow melted on the road, but accumulated elsewhere(photo below). I let the furnace on all night(at it's lowest setting) so that the water lines didn't freeze. Also, because of the weather lately I've needed to run the generator more than ever before. Fortunately it starts easily even in the cold and runs quietly(Honda 1000i). The solar panel will charge the batteries fully during the day, but I need the generator to run my desktop computer and at night to run the furnace. I've really made use of my iPod Touch during these stormy days listening to many hours of podcasts.
Tonight is my last night here. It has been fairly frustrating to be in such a great location and to not be able to get out as much as I wanted. This is an amazing part of the world, with mountains, glacial and volcanic geology, goodbirding and lots of other interesting features. Between the weather(wind and cold) and the amounts of snow left on the ground it was hgard to get where I wanted. Virtually all of the back roads are still snowed in.
May 12-14: Travel to Portland. On Wednesday(12th) I drove up 395 to the Nevada/California line. I stayed in the Bordertown RV Park and did a couple of loads of laundry. On Thursday I drove about 300 miles. I took 395 to Alturas, CA, from there I drove to Klamath Falls, OR. When I got to Klamath Falls I needed diesel fuel. I could not find a gas station that had diesel fuel , I asked several people in the city and everywhere that they sent me did not have fuel. I finally found a station that had diesel pumps, but they would not sell me fuel(they only sold to commercial customers). A customer in the station pointed out a station down the street that would sell me fuel. In all, it took me a bout an hour to find a place to fuel up. It has been many years since I've had that much trouble finding fuel.
After Klamath I drove north on 97 along Upper Klamath Lake and into the forests of Oregon. Highway 97 is a very nice two-lane road and traffic was not bad. I found a very nice rest area near Chemult and spent the night there(Photo below). On Friday morning I drove across the Cascades on Highway 58 and took I-5 up to Tualatin. The weather was nice; sunny with little wind for this entire trip.
Free
camping at a nice rest area!
My sister lives in Sherwood, OR(near Portland)and I'll be spending a couple of weeks here with her and visiting with my neices and nephews. I have three nephews and two neices around Portland.
May 15-28: I'm spending two weeks in Portland visiting with my sister, nieces and nephews. It is the 25th as I write this and it's been raining for the past week and a half. I had a chance on the 15th (a rare rainless day)to finally take a motorcycle ride with my nephew Tim. We'd been planning that for over two years.
The trailer is also getting some attention. I fixed a couple of malfunctioning locks and an interior panel that was loose. My main door lock broke when I was locking the door from the outside and I was locked out. Fortunately I had a window open that was big enough(barely) for me to crawl through.
My sister has possession of our Mother's cookbooks. I am in the process of scanning the handwritten recipes into .pdf files. It brought back lots of good memories as we went through all the hundreds of recipes that she collected.
May 28-31: Weekend with the Wet Westies. On Friday my sister and I drove down to a hay field southwest of Corvallis for a weekend with the Wet Westies. The Wet Westies are a group of people who own and camp in Volkswagen vans. The Wet is for the rain in the NW and Westies is derived from Westfalia, a type of VW van. My sister has been a member of the Wet Westies for years and I had met several other members before and they were all great people. I was allowed to attend as a guest of my sister, but I was there as a SOB; Some Other Brand! We had a great time. There were two potlucks and campfire gatherings with great conversation(including some bad jokes). There was a constant conversation about VW vans and VW van people stories. There were more than a few repairs being done, including refrigerator swaps. I posted a few photos from the gathering on Picasa here. I learned that the consumption of wine was a big part of life in Oregon(look at the photos). The guys had recovered many orchard smudge pots on a previous campout here and they had MANY containers of rice oil to fuel these pots. Every night we were warmed by the pots which in the past had kept the trees warm. The VW van community is a truly unique phenomenon, they are extremely supportive of one another and have helped my sister a lot. I can't recall a time when I so much enjoyed the company of people I had not met before.
A
few of the VW buses.
An
evening of smudge pot warmth!
This file was last modified on: