Back into California and into desolation along the eastern border. I was a bit surprised how fiercely the Californians protect their crops even out here in the middle of desolate nowhere. We’d crossed the border in 5 places now and had to go through 3 checkpoints to comfiscate any fruits or vegetables. Only the Lake Tahoe crossings didn’t have any which would’ve required a check point in the middle of a town. I heard from a coworker that the guards were not to happy that they had a stick sitting on their dash that the kids had found while getting gas in Arizona and it wound up in the car. Wouldn’t want some contraband like a twig making it into California!
There had been a line at all the checkpoints but thankfully they waved the motorcycles through each time. Ironically we had been carrying roadside plums and cherries in the bag just a week earlier.
They really have you by the short hairs if you end up needing gas out here, ouch!
The only gas has to be trucked in long distances around the long mountain chain, the short ways to civilization through Death Valley or through Yosemite do not allow trucks. I should have waited, we passed another station inside Yosemite about 40 miles away and it was 80 cents cheaper, the gas there comes from the coast the short way.
Mono Lake is a super saline basin lake like the Dead Sea outside Yosemite on the east enterance.
One huge hunk of obsidian. This is the biggest obsidian bomb I’ve ever seen.
Again with the sea gulls 100’s of miles inland? We learned that Mono Lake is one stopping point for migratory sea birds on their way to Utah and Montana where we had seen them a few weeks earlier.
When the water cant absorb any more salt and minerals it grows into these cool formations.
OMG WTF? Run! Before it sucks out our brain! …
Not some freak alien movie prop, this is a model of a juvenile alkaline fly one of the few things that can live in the water and some brine shrimp below.
This was great place to visit for sure. It was great fun.