Highway 395 In The Spring

Tossed the kid in the car and took her south for Spring Break for a few days to visit her relatives.  The ridiculous amounts of snow we've had in the Sierras was evident at the Crestview rest stop near Mammoth, which up until now was resoundingly closed due to a 20 foot high wall of snow blocking the entrance and entombing the place.

This time they'd finally managed to get a snowplow in there and clean the place out, at least enough to unearth the buildings and for vehicles to get into the parking lot.

Lots of snow still surrounded the place, tho!

Note the shed on the left for scale...

Also had the kid pose next to the local glacier for scale.

The thing just went as far as the eye could see in a huge horseshoe encircling the rest area.  Looking at the layers and seeing each storm's snowfall was fun.

A little further south things had warmed up a bit. We stopped off at Tom's Place to admire the trees and rocks..and the trees *in* rocks.

Gotta love cool and weird rock formations...

Tom's Place.  Hasn't changed a whit (except for paint color) since it was built in 1919. Very cute spot and well worth a stop.

Right next to this parking lot is Rock Creek. It was flowing well although pretty much tea-colored due to Spring snowmelt.  The little bridge in the background was calling me, but it seemed to be on private property so we didn't explore.

We tried to drive up the road to Rock Creek Lake, but the gate at the trailhead was still closed and locked.  Next time!

We did get to suddenly come across a herd of deer smack in the road.  They just looked at us so I slowly went around them, yelling at a doe as I did, "Hey, get outta the road!"

Her response was to throw her head up and start out after the car like she was gonna teach me a lesson and either kick my butt or throw herself through my windshield.  Possibly both.  No thank you, we hurried up the road.

We made Bishop and stopped for lunch, taking it to our favorite park to feed the ducks.

Yeah.  Right.  Ducks.

Seagulls as far as the eye could see.  The ducks were around, but mostly made themselves scarce.  Unlike this guy, who seemed to be a professional-grade beggar.

...and he was very vocal and LOUD about it. When I called my husband to check in, it was hard to hear over the incessant pitiful seagull cries for more food. You had to time your conversation for when the little dude was inhaling for his next round of "EEE EEE EEEEEEE!"

Even when he was walking around he was yelling about how he was starving, criminy.

Yeah, poor guy is skin and bones.

After getting badly suckered by con-artist birds, we continued south...and drove through the little town of Lone Pine...where either they're soured on tourists or are planning on being Ground Zero of the coming zombie apocalypse.

It was like a set piece for a Roger Corman film.

Oh well, at least the bees are happy with highway 395's amazing Spring bloom!