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Today I shall post an actual photo from the trip. (Photos taken so far: 473. No, I'm not posting *all* of them ever, but I want to get started.)
This was the very first actual-sightseeing-type photo I took, on the J20 (I think) towards Highway 120 near Yosemite National Park. My home country, and in particular my home state, is flat and in no way geologically excitable, so I always find hills and mountains to be quite stirring to visit.
As I progress through the images, I'll start posting shots with more story to them, but... you know. This was the first.
Today was a highly successful day, in that we combined both resting for the management of physical and mental health and endurance and also some very satisfying tourism.
We had breakfast at a reasonable hour, for once - ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) velithya went to the market next door to the motel and bought milk and disposable bowls (made from wheat stalks, but the packaging hastens to assure us that they are totally gluten-free), and we had cereal in our motel room. (The cereal we brought from home, because acquiring gluten-free cereal that I'm not allergic to and both of us like is not an easy task.)
After munching a bit, we sort of loafed for a bit and discussed potential plans. I had slept really badly and was very tired, though, so I had a nap for a couple of hours while velithya poked her computer in some fashion, and felt much better for it afterwards.
The one error we made in our day was that we were still a bit slack about getting out of the motel and starting our afternoon plans, and by the time we got lunch, both of us were pretty shaky from low blood sugar.
Still, we had a quite nice lunch at the Mobil station on the road between Lee Vining and Tioga Pass. (You can tell you're in a small town when one of the best restaurants is... the gas station.)
After that, we went out to another part of Mono Lake - the part with tall spires of tufa and, curiously, a distinct lack of gag-inducingly horrible smell. It smells like brackish water - not surprising for a body of liquid more than twice as salty as the sea and ten times as alkaline - but not the nauseating stench of rot at the other place where we approached the water.
We took many pictures. Here is one, to give you an idea of the curious, almost alien aspect the area has.
Part of why the tufa is so high, it seems, is that the lake used to be much, much deeper than it is right now. There are sign placards on the trail as you approach that show where the lake edges were in something like 1959 and 1963. Too much water was diverted from the lake's tributaries to serve Los Angeles and other places, and the lake was drying out; water has subsequently been returned. The target appears to be the boundaries of 1959 (which are slightly lower than the '63 boundaries, but not far).
The paved trail from the carpark to the lakeside gives way to a path made of wooden beams at that point, which I find rather charming. On either side of the path is a seemingly endless scrubland of low bushes I dubbed "spinifake" - because we don't know what it's actually called, but both velithya and I found it put us strongly in mind of spinifex, even though it obviously isn't spinifex because, you know, America.
As I approached the edge of the water, I had a rather startling moment that made me glad I tend not to have massively flinch-like reactions to surprise, as a rule, since I was standing on uncertain footing amid sharp rocks.
I was walking towards the water pooling amid the forming tufa crystals and suddenly it was as if the ground surged around me, with a sudden loud buzzing that was pretty much straight out your less-appetising film selections. It turns out the alkaline flies that are a significant section of the lake's ecosystem were present in vast swarms, and I hadn't noticed until I approached close enough to startle them.
After we had our fill of the tufa, we left and set off to find Panum Crater, one of the many craters in the region, which has an extensive collection of (geologically) young volcanoes. We took a wrong turn first, but it got us some spectacular views, and then went back and found our way to the crater's carpark.
From the carpark, there's a steep sand-and-gravel slope to walk up in order to get to the rim of the crater itself. From there, there are two trails - one around the rim, the other to the volcano's lava plug.
The first steep slope had been rather an acute effort for me, and the lava plug trail was a long path with more steep slope to climb, so I stayed there while velithya went up and on.
I enjoyed my time sitting on the rim in part with the fascinating and funky echo effects the crater seems to produce. A sharp clap from me would come back to me like a roar that ripped around the crater from left to right.
It was a highly satisfying trip, but quite exhausting. I think it will take more photo-posting to show why, but I am quite, quite tired tonight.
For dinner, we went low key - some turkey slices and cheese from the market with crackers I still had in my bag from when they were packed as potential travel snacks on our flights. We ate them as a picnic on my bed.
(It was dark by then, so having a picnic outside was not an option. It seems that there have been a number of sightings of bears around the town in the last couple of weeks. Having food out and about... not a great idea.)Current Location: Lee Vining, California Current Mood:  drained Current Music: Sleepy Hollow (FOX11 Reno)
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