The Alabama Hills - or part of them, at least.
On the road again, but I'm not sure if it's the Canned Heat Version or the Willie Nelson version. I was awake about twenty hours in making the journey from North Carolina to Bishop, California. The drive from Reno was much longer than normal because we were forced off the interstate because of high winds and had to take "old" 395 from Reno to Bishop. The headwinds made it a lot longer than it should have taken. Or at least, that's what I'm claiming. But, we were happy to get here and that's great.
Things are a bit different here. All those dramatically dropping gasoline prices have yet to reach the eastern part of California. $4.69 for regular was the cost in Lee Vining, California. Ouch.
Here's a happy snap from the overlook at Mono Lake.
Yes, we eventually wound up on the road below. It's a long way down.
I woke up this morning just before dawn darn time change jet lag) and decided after a short discussion to head out just to look around the Alabama Hills and come back and get a late breakfast. We headed through Bishop, stopped at the Schat's Bakery for some baked goods that were exceptional and headed south toward the Alabama Hills. Relying on Brooks' memory, we missed the turn to the Alabama Hills and figured this out a half hour later. We eventually got to the Alabama Hills with only about an hour of "good light" left. Alabama Hills is impressive. It goes on for miles and is an amazing jumble of huge boulders. We will definitely return and have a go at it a bit earlier in the day.
When we were no longer satisfied with the light, we did some exploring and then headed into Lone Pine, CA for some lunch. After lunch we headed to the Mt. Whitney Portal. It was a spectacular drive to the trail head. Maybe we will go back after the Labor Day Weekend hikers and such head home and hopefully have the place to ourselves.
Photographic locations are like people. There are "morning people" and those other misguided types. On this safari, because it looks like we will be doing grand landscape photographs a lot of our efforts will happen during the "golden hours" of the day; a couple hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset. We'll see how this works out.
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