In the truck with the inside air only on you could still smell the smoke and our eyes burned. Even Stuart was complaining. Am sure the medical community put out a notice not to breathe the air in this area for any reason.
Our detour added over a hundred extra miles to our trip, we drove from South Lake Tahoe, CA to Carson City, NV, to Fallon, NV, to Hawthorne, NV and back into California to Lee Vining. Smoke was bad almost all the way to Hawthorne.
Hawthorne, NV would be an interesting place to stop for a few hours but we didn’t have time this trek. I had heard of it from somewhere but had never been there. As it turns out it is a U.S. Army military town for housing surplus supplies (they didn’t specify what the surplus was). There are probably fifty of so very large, multistory buildings lined up in very neat, military style rows for holding whatever surplus they hold and there are probably hundreds of concrete, pyramid shaped bunkers that house munitions surplus. Would be an interesting tour if it is allowed. Fort Wingate, NM used to allow tours of their concrete reinforced munition bunkers where surplus was stored. Probably some of it is still there after 50 years. (If they’d call me I bet I could put a dent in their surplus issue with my ebay experience).
Air quality improved before Hawthorne and we arrived in Lee Vining still breathing. Lee Vining is famous for two things as far as we could tell, the MonoCone Ice Cream Stand and some of the highest fuel prices in the nation. Unleaded was $5.599 and diesel $5.499. Not sure why MonoCone is so famous, it did not meet any of the expectations we had been told to expect about what a fabulous ice cream place it was. So that means it has probably been bought out recently and the new ice cream people aren’t as good as the old ice cream people. Oh well, shudda been there earlier.
Lee vining is above the shoreline of Mono Lake. Mono Lake is a large lake that has five streams flowing into it and no streams flowing out. So it grows and shrinks with the amount of rainfall and season. The city of Los Angeles ruined Mono Lake, like they do everything else, in the 1940s by drawing too much water out of it for their municipal use. Before anyone stopped LA from taking water the lake had become ten times more salty than the Pacific Ocean and remains so today. It killed all the fresh water sea life. But at least it is protected now. A very interesting lake with lots of neat geology including tall towers made of calcium carbonate grow there and it is home to a tiny brine shrimp. Lee Vining is also the eastern entrance to Yosemite via the Tioga Pass.
We drove to Mammoth Lakes one day and were very happy so see the State of California is thinning trees in large areas and cutting the underbrush. I guess after thirty years of uncontrolled forest fires every summer someone is finally getting the message. California used to have crews that thinned trees and cut underbrush and for many, many years had very few large forest fires. But politics took over and the end result is beautiful forest areas burning every year and towns like Paradise destroyed by massive fires. And recovery takes generations.
While in the Mammoth area we drove to the ski lifts and then up to Devi’s Postpile parking lot and hiked to the pile for a look see. Or I should say, I hiked to the Postpile, Priss had kicked her recliner and lost, coming out with a broken toe or toes. Whatever, but they were sure black, blue and purple. (I’m required to say (she says) she didn’t kick the recliner, she stumbled and her foot hit the recliner). End result with a colorful foot is still the same. But I will say she doesn’t get anywhere as colorful as I do when I do dumb stuff and lose. My body produces black, blue, purple, green, yellow and a few other unidentifiable colors. So she claimed injury and too gimpy to hike so she stayed in the truck while I hiked.
Anyway, the Devil’s Postpile is an ancient lava flow area where the lava cooled quickly and formed into colums, much like Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. It is one of the finest examples of columnar basalt in the world. Through erosion, freeze, thaw and age the columns break off in post size pieces, fall to the bottom and pile up, hence the name Postpile, not sure why the devil had anything to do with it.
Also learned that the Mammoth area used to be included in Yosemite National Park. The area didn’t have much “appeal” until the Postpile was discovered (and tourism developed) and commercial interests in mining and timber became more important so the area was taken out of Yosemite and given up for commercial uses. Then only the Postpile was declared a National Monument, the rest of the area remained open to the public.
We then departed Lee Vining and put out our camp flag in Bishop. From Bishop we had planned one full day south at Manzanar. Manzanar is the site of a World War II Japanese internment camp that held almost 11,000 Japanese Americans against their will at the beginning of the war. They were given three days to dispose of their homes, businesses, plans and whatever else with no compensation then report for transportation to Manzanar. There were ten camps like Manzanar located throughout the United States.
The site chosen for Manzanar lies west of Death Valley and immediately east of Mt Williamson, 14,379 feet, so summers were very hot and winters were very cold. And it’s only about twenty miles north of Mt Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States. The “housing” was military boot camp style barracks constructed very poorly because of the speed in which they were required to be occupied. The barracks at the beginning were very drafty and had little heating and no cooling. And after the initial panic of getting all the Japanese Americans into internment camps the government allowed the conditions to improve somewhat, the construction quality to improved and the occupants were allowed to form self governing bodies. They built Japanese gardens, planted vegetable crops, fruit trees, raised cattle, sheep and became almost as industrious in the camps as they were in their previous private lives.
Along with the rows and rows of barracks were mess halls, latrines, bath houses, laundry houses, all segregated for men’s and women’s facilities.
The Japanese had a lot to say about the “Americanized” menu of “Liver and Onions”, “Sauerkraut and Wieners”, “Mutton” and many other meals completely foreign to the Japanese. They were eventually allowed to make their own menus, cook their own food and make their society as close to their normal lives as possible. In one of the mess halls it stated that from the time of construction to the closing of Manzanar the stove was never turned off.
They were also required to swear their allegiance to the United States, then they were slowly allowed more freedoms. Those that refused were transferred to camps further into the interior of the country for “special education”. Many of those that refused to swear their allegiance said the instructions were so confusing they had no idea what they were saying yes or no to. The instructions were in English and many of the Japanese did not speak english and many more spoke English only as a second language, and poorly.
There were ten such camps scattered throughout the US. Not a good time in our history. Eventually some of the Japanese that swore allegiance were allowed to join and serve in the military, but not in the Pacific and many distinguished themselves which helped ease restrictions in the camps.
Manzanar was closed in November 1945 and the remaining interns were given a one way bus or train ticket back to their precious home and $25 to finance their new beginning. Amazing. Finally in 1990 President George H.W. Bush issued a formal apology to the Japanese Americans and gave a token $20,000 to each for their losses. I imagine they also allowed them to keep their original $25. What a time.
Priss and I thought it strange that in school we had not been taught a single thing about Japanese Americans being forced into internment camps. Maybe it was too soon after the war and still an open wound to the government. At the least we should learn as much about the history as we can to make sure it never happens again.
The visitor center at Manzanar was closed (along with a lot of state services) so we had to cut our visit to a much shorter time period than we wanted to. California still had a lot of remaining Covid restrictions in place for state run facilities, guess they hadn’t visited the Tahoe area where people were packed together like sardines and having blast. Anyway, with some extra time on our hands and several hours of daylight remaining we drove to Lone Pine, took the Whitney Portal Road and drove up to get a great view of Mt Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States at 15,505 feet, and only about 85 miles from Bad Water Basin in Death Valley, the lowest point in the United States at 285 feet below sea level.
The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains is beautiful with rugged, rugged mountains, fantastic lakes and thick forests. We didn’t get to spend the amount of time we had planned because of Covid restrictions so we’ll have to go back in another time. With extra days on our schedule and time on our hands we had an invite from the Larricks to go back to the Blossom to spend our extra days with Priss’ sister, so that’s what we did.
Later
-Tom