Riding south to Yosemite

September 19 It was another bright sunshiny day in Nevada as we packed up to head out. We turned south on 395 with no destination in mind. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to Yosemite because the roads were pretty crazy looking and I was going to make that decision when we got to the turn off at 120.

We saw lots of these little buggies, probably close to 50 of them. 

 Above is Lake Topaz on the California border. This time we had to stop for the plant and vegetable inspection. They were checking for gypsie moths. We didn't have to get inspected for those because Hardin County Ohio wasn't on the list. He did go in and look at Becky's house plants that she has been carting around since Texas in 2014. He declared them healthy and let us go on our way.
395 runs into the Eldorado National Forest and becomes a scenic byway. It was pretty running along the Big Slough river.

One of three of Becky's plant pots.

 Just before Bridgeport, we climbed out of the river valley back into the desert and left the national forest lands. We gassed in Bridgeport and carried on south.

 395 begins climbing a steep grade to Mono City and eventually we came out on an overlook of Mono Lake.  Becky got out and took some photos and we had lunch here. The guardrail was covered in stickers all along the over look.

 As we came down off the ridge and along the lake, we began to see signs for Mono Lake National Monument. Why of course we will stop. They have a small visitors center and we looked at the lake. The Lake has no out lets and is 2 1/2 times saltier than the ocean. While it can't support fish it does have its own type of shrimp. It also has cool formations called tufa.

Our first view of the tufa.

 To see a large formation of the tufa we had to run down 395 and make a left turn on 120. Some of the sites on the way down.

 Back in the 1940s the water from some of the creeks was diverted to water the people of LA. As a result the lake dropped 41 feet in level. Environmentalists and others determined that the health of the lake was failing due to all the diverted water. They agreed to raise the water level of the lake by 20 some feet which means that all the tufa that we enjoyed seeing today will be underwater in a few years. If you don't get the chance to go, enjoy the photos. 

 After looking at the tufa, we drove north on 395 and took the turn off to the west for 120 headed into Yosemite. Tioga Pass was probably the steepest and longest pass we have climbed to date. The mighty Tahoe took it like a champ and I kept her down in 2nd gear the whole time. We turned off part way up to let things cool down a little bit and I took a couple of photos.

If you look closely at the mountain in the middle of the photo, about half way up you can see a straight line where the road crosses it.

Lembert Dome

 We stopped at the Tuolumne Visitor's Center and got the stamp, post cards and saw that all the camp grounds were full. We had no idea where we were going to end up and with no cell service, we couldn't look for a spot. Fortunately I had opened the All Stays app (if you don't have it, it's worth the ten bucks) earlier and it was still loaded and we could see what was close.

 Looking back along Tenaya Lake.

 Eventually we left the park, had to show my pass to leave? Anyhow we ended up at Yosemite Lakes RV park. I greased the left front hub again as it had gotten hot and leaked out the grease all over the wheel. Becky fixed pork chops, cabbage and potatoes followed by marshmallows and star gazing.