Continuing . . . Journey to Lee Vining and Yosemite National Park

November already! I've decided to join in on another Instagram photo challenge, not that I need an excuse to take photos but it does provide a bit more direction. India Ross of @ofearthandstars has posted this list for #navigatingthroughnovember and today's prompt is "crisp." To me that is a lot of different things such as crispy, crunchy leaves underfoot, crisp, brisk sweater sort of feel outside, but, because I made this last night, Apple Crisp made with fresh, snappy apples (albeit from the market, not picked fresh from a tree), brown sugar and oats. Heavenly with a dab of whipped cream. See my Instagram feed for this deliciousness.

Yesterday, both of us went to the County Courthouse and cast our early votes for the Presidential election . . . so want this to be over with so we can move on! Blah, blah, blah!

Without further adieu I will get back to our road trip October 18 through 25 to Northern California. Day Six, October 23 saw us leaving Dayton, Nevada and driving Highway 50 to Carson City then onto Highway 395 along the southeast side of the Sierras and up into them at Topaz Lake. We stopped at Wa She Shu Casino & Travel Center just outside Gardnerville to fuel up. It was lucky for us that this place is brand new as of May 2016; built on reservation land by the Washoe Tribe in cooperation with the Poarch Creek Indians of Alabama, the name means "The People's Place." Lucky for us because we were hard pressed to find a fuel station that would accommodate our long rig and also have propane as we had used over a half tank and didn't want to not have adequate to run the furnace and fridge for the rest of our trip. Gardnerville and Minden are pretty towns and the surrounding country is rich farm and ranch land.

Rango waiting patiently to get on the road from Dayton.

The only photo I took in Dayton indicating a bit of its history.

Here are a couple photos taken along the highway outside Gardnerville, through Indian Hills and on to Topaz Lake and the California border.

The Sierras towering above the pretty farmland outside Gardnerville.

Approaching the pass to Topaz Lake.

Topaz Lake, a reservoir on the Nevada-California border. It was calm and reflective when we drove through at about 1:00 pm (PDT). Right around this bend was the Inspection Station on the border.

I caught the stateline sign on the fly again! There are very few places to pull over and get a proper photo but that's okay as we've seen a border sign before!

You can see that the shoulder is close; I was leaning way out of the window!

Once in California we were to stay in Mono County until leaving for home on the 25th when we would cross again into Nevada and the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Highway 395 took us through Coleville and Walker and over the Devil's Gate Summit (elevation 7,519 feet) into Bridgeport. Back in the late 1950's our family vacationed in Bridgeport at a little resort that had cabins for rent - I confirmed this memory with Dad and he recalled it too - the owners had a pet deer that we remembered too. At any rate, I tried to spot the place but things are changed quite a bit, as well as I was younger, shorter, and much less observant of my surroundings as a child. Just outside Bridgeport is the ghost town of Bodie which I also remember visiting back in the day too. We thought that we might be able to go there on our way back home but by the time we set out Tuesday morning, the winds were very strong over the Conway Summit on Highway 395 so we took an alternate route easterly to Hawthorne, Nevada. 

Twenty-one miles from Bridgeport lay our destination of Lee Vining where we'd set up residence for two nights at the Mono Vista RV Park. Right before the town, though, spread the brilliant blue saline soda Mono Lake and I snapped a few photos as we drove. This one really captures the vastness of the country I thought.

Such an amazing sight from the higher elevation of the highway.

I wish that we had taken some time to go into the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Preserve to get a better view of the natural limestone spires (tufa), wetlands and bird habitats. It was interesting to see, though, even at a distance, the spires and knobs formed by the interaction of freshwater springs and alkaline lake water (because there is no outlet, the lake is very alkali). We were able to get views of the lake on its northeast side when we drove home Tuesday via Cal SR167.

Once we got to the RV park in Lee Vining, we set up house, took Rango for a walk, and settled in for the evening, planning our jaunt the next day, Monday, into Yosemite.

Shoes off and ready for a nap.

The pretty cottonwood leaves and our RVing neighbors through the door.

 I'm thinking that I will begin a new post tomorrow documenting our trip Monday over Tioga Pass and into Yosemite National Park. It will be photo-heavy as between the two of us we couldn't stop snapping - forewarned!

Bye for today. Happy November 2016!