Day 53 - Spet 10 - Bishop - On Our Way To Hollywood

Today we left Nevada and made our way south on our way to Hollywood for the weekend. Gertie, our GPS, decided that we should go through Lake Tahoe and over several set of mountains with windy and narrow roads (see yesterday's blog). We took a look at the map and decided to go down highway 395 to Bishop CA. This was a much easier route with very gradual inclines as we headed west. It did go over a couple of summits that exceed 7,000' including Deadman Summit which was over 8,100' but because the valley floor is 5,000' the climb did not seem to be too bad.

The scenery included everything from a semi desert, evergreen forests, to large lakes with mountains surrounding it all. We stopped at Lake Topaz for lunch at that last casino before California. We both lost $1 on the penny slots in a blink of an eye.
















About an hour down the road we stopped at Mono Lake which is part of the Mammoth basin which stretches all the way to Utah. The route we took skirted Yosemite National Park. This is the area that Sierra Club, John Muir and the Audubon Society with their conservation and nature writings are all associated with.






























We are keeping an eye on hurricane Ike as it appears that it will hit Texas very hard and cause flooding as far inland as San Antonio. Also many of the evacuatees are being shelter in San Antonio, so if becomes as bad as predicted we will stay out of their way and head north.