395, Again...

Another trip down highway 395, where weird things await...

One thing that has bugged me, literally since about 1980, is this sign with the weird squashed-bug symbol on the bottom. It looks like a right-facing Pac Man with six legs.  The sign is just ahead of a curve in the highway as you are going southbound. There is no matching sign going northbound.

 WHAT THE HELL DOES THE SQUASHED-BUG SYMBOL MEAN?!

I've even taken to the Internet to try and find out what the stupid thing means. No dice. All I can figure is, it is a warning that several (three) dirt roads offshoot the highway ahead.  But I've never seen anything like it where other dirt roads join the highway...and there isn't any kind of flashing warning light nearby, either (my other thought).

I grump my way down the highway.

Continuing the weird sign theme, further down is a Seventh Day Adventist billboard on the outskirts of Big Pine.  It used to have a message to the effect of 'Saturday is the sabbath, changed to Sunday by the Anti-Christ'. Not entirely friendly for a church, but oh, well.

They've upped the ante.

WOW.  That's some serious hate-slinging, there. Why would a church (and more importantly, the members) tolerate such a hateful message being displayed...? Truly a sign of our sad times, I guess.

So much for peace and love at church. Just based on that sign, I'd never join that one.

A little further down the road...

When you start to suspect that at this point, your doctor is just being a dick.

One happy note--the Give and Take sculpture garden outside Olancha has another new installation!

A raven who looks like he's either wearing the Wicked Witch of the East's striped socks and ruby slippers or some rad toe socks.

I love him, and he's a lot closer to the highway so hopefully he'll attract more attention to the sculpture garden!

Road Trip!

Took another trip down highway 395 to visit family and my doctor.  Just the other day we had a pretty big snowstorm--not much at our place but the Sierras in general got socked pretty hard.  We've been hearing the avalanche canons going off a lot as they try and knock loose some of the more dangerous areas.

Luckily for me the roads were pretty clear by the time I drove through. The hot springs off the side of the road at Devil's Gate Summit were drifting huge clouds of steam over the roadway...

All in all it was a nice drive and the weather took mercy on me this time.

Mojave is...interesting.  Half thriving, half waaay dead. There doesn't seem to be anything in between.  The AP/PM station there is like the 9th circle of Hell with it's broken gas pumps, the drug addicts-begging-money gauntlet you have to run if you want to go inside and the floor to ceiling tagging that is carved into every available surface (even the toilet seat, I kid you not) of the bathroom.

Why anyone would want to grip a public toilet seat long enough to carve their tag into it is beyond me.

But the local Army/Navy store--sadly closed now--is fascinating. They have fun signage.

Wait...2nd annual...?

They also had some random signs someone had made...most of them were generic yearlong holiday themed but this one stood out.

'Sorry you're no spruce goose anymore'. Okaaay...

Running the lawnmower over the waterfowl is a bit much, tho.

Farther down the street is a local RV park with a cute sign.

And an old factory of some kind...

Wait--what's the sign say...?

Oh.
Do they even allow grass in Mojave...?

Let's Go For A Drive!

So today we decided to go out and find the kid some snow to play in, since yesterday's storm kinda skunked us here on the valley floor.  We tossed the sled into the car and off we went, decided today to aim for the Pine Nut range across the valley--we hadn't been out there yet and wanted to explore anyway.

Unfortunately, the storm hadn't cooperated and there was no snow to be had.

But we had a nice drive anyway and got to explore a bit, which is always fun!  Down one of the roads we found a cool old barn--around here you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cool old barn--that was tantalizingly close to the road yet fenced off.

Just as well it's fenced off since the dry stone walls were falling apart.  I *think* this was a dairy barn with animals below and hay storage above--note the hay loft carrier arm sticking out on the left side and the lack of windows in the second story.  There is also a very small house to the left of the barn, it was so overgrown with trees I couldn't get any shots of it.

But the barn was fascinating!

 There is some kind of machinery on the left, it appears to be a large green tank. The entire lower floor almost looked house-like.

On the top of the barn is this decorative vent.

Down the road a little ways and we come upon this massive old cottonwood tree.

It honest to God looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

Haha...naw, it doesn't have eyes.

it's got eyes it's got eyes it's got eyes--!

I think this tree had a starring role in 'Poltergeist'.

Alongside cool old tree was a nifty, but puzzling, bridge arrangement over a creek.

There are a total of THREE bridges over the creek--the wooden one, the fixed metal one and the metal two-part drawbridge. The area was fenced and posted against trespassing so I couldn't go over to get a better look, so I can't for the life of me figure out why three bridges are needed--I could see two, if you needed to lead an animal over one bridge while you used the other--but the wierd low-mounted drawbridge is perplexing.

It's actually probably gonna kinda bug the crap outta me until I get it figured out, truth be known...
Oh well.  Back down the road...

Where we suddenly come across some cool yard art!

This guy had a gigantic steel dragon, bottle trees, old farm equipment, metal sculptures...

All kinds of cool stuff!

I liked the dragon best.

The artist was smart enough to guy-wire the thing down so he wouldn't fly away in one of our epic Nevada windstorms. I can just imagine the frantic 911 calls if that happened...

I especially liked the dragon's head.

Great, now *I* need a giant dragon for *my* yard.

Despite the snow in the background of all these pictures, we couldn't get to it in the amount of time we had, so instead we stopped off at the park around the corner from our house to visit the resident ducks and the non-flying Canadian Goose (he has a wonky wing) who lives at the pond.  For some reason the goose looked like a 'George' to me, so that's what I've decided to call him.

We hadn't thought to bring any bread so they pretty much snubbed us.

After this it was time to get home and feed the chickens before they snubbed us, too.

Here Fishy, Fishy!

Took the kid down to visit her cousins in southern California, on the way we stopped at the historic Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery in Independence, California.  That link is the official CA link, there is another maintained by the hatchery today, here.  I'd suggest reading both to get the full story, also to talk with the volunteers in person.  The tale of determined locals vs. state government, betrayals and victories they've told me could be a movie of the week!

The hatchery has been around a long time.  After severe flooding and mudflows destroyed the fish-rearing ponds, four buildings, filled the fingerling raceways and killed all the fish in 2008, there then followed California's budget woes that forced it's closure.  It would have disappeared if it wasn't for a stubborn group of volunteers that saved it.

Today it's no longer a hatchery but is instead an interpretive center/museum--but with fish!  It has odd days and hours of operation, so it can be difficult to catch it open.  But it's well worth it! They specialize in raising Golden Trout, the stunning California state fish.

The pond out front is home to some truly huge, pretty damned tame Rainbow trout...

...and several kinds of dragonflies!

This one just climbed right onto the kid's fingertip.

 The trout just kinda hang around certain spots near the shore...

The reason why they hung out in these particular areas?
Old coin-operated candy machines that give you a big ol' handful of trout chow for a quarter to cast upon the waters!

Which promptly causes a fish riot. The pond was calm, so the little kids standing near us as we tossed in the food were shrieking with excitement.  Pretty soon all the adults were shoving quarters or trout chow into any kid nearby's hands so they could feed them, too. Didn't matter if it wasn't your kid, here have a quarter and get some trout chow, it's awesome!

Fish riots are cool.

They swim over each other and bonk into each other as they go after the food; Hell, they don't care.

I like this pic for the beautiful tail sticking out of the water.

After this we went inside.  The volunteers have been working hard to improve the place, installing a video monitor with seating so you can watch a show on the hatchery's history, plus a bunch of exhibits with old-time fish stocking equipment from the days when it was all done using pack trains of horses. There is also a small gift shop and another room with a few odd 'yard sale' items people donated to help raise money for the site.

But also--Golden trout fingerlings!

Pretty sure this sign was from last year, but heck, it still works.

Golden trout babies!!!

They zoomed up and down the raceways clearly wanting us to feed them, but alas we had no fingerling chow.  As lovely as these little guys are, their colors are nothing compared to how bright the adult Golden Trout are.

After this it was time to wash the trout chow off our fingers and wave goodbye to the fish.

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!