Go West! Day 9 Death Valley to Lee Vining

[CrispyA]

One of the lovely things about being away for 3 weeks is that being on holiday starts to feel like normal life. We didn't have that "on countdown" feeling that you can sometimes get with a shorter trip, so we're glad we were able to for this amount of time.

Slept well again and had a quick breakfast in the room of donuts and bananas (most major foodgroups covered!) as we thought the breakfast at the restaurant as a bit pricey for us.

After I checked out, Paul and the kids did their usual "hilarious" joke of driving away without me. I suspected they might and when the car wasn't where I had left, I rolled my eyes and walked around to the front of the motel. Once I got to the car there was a bit of waiting until I got the door and then pulling forward or reversing, just for extra hilarity. Ooh, nurse, soothe my splitting sides.

Eventually they all stopped laughing hard enough to actually let me in the car and we set off. We stopped a few times for more views and desert experiences, complete with "act natural" pictures.





After leaving Death Valley we continued on, gaining elevation as we went. We passed through Lone Pine, where Paul and I had stayed on our honeymoon and had really liked, but it was still a bit early to stop, so we pressed on.

We did stop in Bishop for brunch, firstly trying Jack in the Box as the power of advertising really works and we'd seen loads of commercials for them! Alas they have no veggie option, so we left again. I can't think of a restaurant we have been to in the UK that didn't have something veggie on the menu and was really surprised at the amount of places in the US that had nothing to offer.

Still, it all turned out for the best as we then found Jack's Bakery further down the street and had a great breakfast in there. The server was lovely and the food was really good.

Set off again and found that we were getting to Lee Vining sooner than expected. Now, earlier in the morning I had suggested visiting the ghost town of Bodie but nobody else had been keen. Now that we had some time I brought it up again. Paul groused a bit and then agreed. I did say "Don't say yes if you don't actually want to go" but he said that he did.

So we drove to the turn off, which told us Bodie was another 12 miles. Cue a huge grump from the driver and a reminder from me that if he really didn't want to go, we could turn back. The response was "I haven't driven 20 miles to turn back now."

As you can imagine, the next few miles were somewhat tense. Then we got to the unpaved section - 3 miles of gravelly road. I looked at husband and knew he really didn't want to take a hire car on that. To be fair, the signs had mentioned the unpaved section but we didn't realise it would be quite that bad. I think it would have been fine in a 4x4 but it was a big risk in the car we had.

So there was a "full and frank exchange of views" in the front of the car and we turned around to go back to Lee Vining.

The journey back was pretty tense, with several barbed comments about having driven 50 miles for nothing, until both me and the kids reminded him that he'd been given the option not to go and had chosen to drive there himself.

We laugh about it now, but it wasn't much fun at the time.

To top it all, we got back to the Mono Lake visitor centre and it started raining. We all sat grumpily in the little cinema watching the Spirit of Yosemite and hoping the sun would come back out.

It didn't and so we went to find the El Mono Motel. It was a nice little spot, with a lovely coffee shop attached. The room was very small with a minute bathroom and to be honest, it was a real squeeze for the 4 of us. But it did have a certain charm and the bird feeders outside the rooms attracted all sorts of birds making it lovely to sit out there.



By this point, both Paul and I weren't feeling great. He had a splitting headache and I just felt "off". Evan was a bit queasy too. We realised later that it was probably altitude sickness - we'd gone from pretty much sea-level to nearly 7000 ft so it's not surprising. A thunderstorm and the subsequent drop in temperature didn't really improve anybody's mood.

We headed out to eat at the Whoa Nellie Deli - I insisted as I really wanted to go there after reading about it, and I'd missed out on Bodie . . .

It's a basic place - a cafe in a gas station - but the food looked good. They are famous for their fish tacos so we ordered those. To be honest, they were pretty disappointing - the fish was fried in batter and quite tasteless - but Evan's pork tacos and Hannah's veggie chilli (hurrah!) were really nice.

We all had an early night as we were feeling rough, so we didn't spent much more time exploring, apart from to get a delicious ice-cream from the general store before heading for bed.

Highs: More of Death Valley, excellent breakfast.

Lows: Grumpiness, rain and altitude sickness - quite a lot for one day.

[parisdisneyfan]

Feel for you with the altitude, as we had the same (see my report Hi Sierras) You just don't realise how high you are as the scenery is normal. Over here if you think that Ben Nevis is our highest bit at around 4000ft and it is desolate. Will be marking down the motel and deli for our next trip, thank you

[Pussycat Doll]

Hmmm an interesting day for you! I'm sure I've been to Lee Vining, must look up old photo albums! Pussycat

[katiebaz]

the altitude sickness can really get you - and we went from Yosemite to Mammouth in one and felt really odd and headachey. Bodie was really good though shame you missed it!