I just received a batch of photos from some friends that took a gorgeous, scenic drive through the back roads of Nevada with the local Z car club. Such gorgeous photos! Genuinely made me wish that Mike and I had been able to go.
It got me in a bit of a nastalgic mood...so I thought I would post my e-mail summary of a similar trip that we were privileged to go on last October...
Mike and I decided to take advantage of the continuous delays of his impending departure to the giant sandbox this past weekend to sign up for a great trip through his Z Car Club. We had heard about the Z Run to Death Valley back in June, and had our name on the list to go from the start. Then we found out that he would be leaving, so we cancelled our plans. Fortunately, the constant delays of his departure allowed us to take part in the trip after all!
It was a bit of a whirlwind decision…Mike made the phone call to the trip's organizers on Wednesday, we boarded Fred in a local kennel and left on Thursday! We spent Thursday night in Manteca, CA and met up with the drivers on Friday morning to begin the trip. There were 11 Zs participating in the drive. We crossed the Sierra Mountains early in the day on Thursday using the Sonora Pass. This pass is north of the Tioga Pass that we explored a couple of weeks ago. The scenery was just as stunning, although not as rugged as what we found in the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses. We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather – the sky was a gorgeous blue scattered with silky white clouds. We even got to see some snow on the way!
Lunch brought us to the town of Lee Vining, and an after-lunch stop at Mono Lake. Mike and I visited this lake briefly a few weeks ago, but did not drive on any of the roads around the lake at that time. We missed out! The Z run cut off of the main highway, and into the Mono Scenic Basin. We stopped to check out the Mono Craters, formed by volcanic activity, and got some great pictures of the lake and distant scenery. From this area, we began entering the more arid areas of the valley that runs between the Sierras and the White Mountains. The road was long and hilly – perfect driving conditions for this group!
We rolled into the town of Bishop for the evening, just in time to miss driving in the huge rain storm that we observed dumping snow on the surrounding mountains! The storm blew through overnight (lots of wind!!), and was still lingering in the early morning when we met in the parking lot to begin the next leg of the journey. In a strange twist of luck, one of our drivers had run over a screw and had a flat tire! I don't know what was funnier…the fact that 4 people were trying to help get the tire fixed, or the fact that they all brought their own gloves on the trip! So this delayed our departure by a couple of hours, which worked in our favor…
Once we were on our way, we took a small diversion off of the main road to check out the Bristlecone Pine Forest…something that isn't in our tour book and not on any of our maps…so Mike and I never knew about it! This forest is the home to the world's oldest trees – and they grow in the worst possible conditions! Nothing else can grow in the dolomite that these trees have rooted themselves in. Mike and I will definitely go back to check out the actual forest and trees in better weather. The previous night's storms had blown in some snow into this area, and we drove as far up into the park as we dared…once we started hitting slush on the road, we all turned around and drove down to the lowest scenic view…which was amazing! This view offered a panorama of the valley below – and awesome views of the neighboring mountains and the weather blowing through. Had we left a couple of hours earlier, we never would have been able to make it as far up the mountain as we did, and the weather wouldn't have been cleared up yet. So a big thank you to Dustin and Makayla (sp?) for sacrificing their tire. J
The trip continued on through an arid valley with very little in sight…just a couple of ranches. We meandered our way into Nevada and passed by an apparently well-known brothel. Of course, we had to stop and take advantage of this photo opportunity! On through Nevada, we entered Death Valley and drove to Scotty's Castle. Everyone took advantage of the opportunity to get out and walk around – some signing up for tours of the castle and others just wandering around the grounds. It was at this point that we were supposed to meet up with about 15 other Z cars from another Z club…but the main road leading through the valley was closed due to the previous night's weather! While we were not all looking forward to adding about 50 miles to our trip by having to drive back into Nevada and enter the park again at a different location to get to our night's lodgings, we really had nothing to worry about. Our "Buzzard Luck" struck again when Steve locked his key in his car and had to call AAA for a rescue. About two hours later, when we were finally deciding to resort to our own methods of unlocking the door to the Mach 5 (with a modified bucket handle, no less!), the AAA guy showed up to a round of applause. After just a few minutes, the car was open, and so was the road! Another unexpected delay worked in our favor, as we could now drive through the valley and check out some more sights.
We stopped at Ubehebe Crater, and thanks to our most fortunate "unluckiness", we had awesome lighting as the sun began its descent past the mountains for the evening. Just goes to show that what might appear as an unfortunate event can often work in your favor! We rounded out the night with a fabulous group dinner at the steak house and a dip in the mineral springs-fed pool.
Sunday saw a morning with no delays – we drove up to Dante's View and Zabriskie Point to check out some amazing panoramas of the valley. Mike and I were very satisfied with this visit to the park, as we saw some things that we didn't see on our last trip through the valley. After a final stop at the hotel for breakfast, we were on our way out of the valley and to our final stop – Ridgecrest for lunch. Mike and I had made this drive before – in rain and fog at night– so we took advantage of being able to enjoy the scenery this time.
After lunch, it was back towards the Sierras and the road home. We passed back through my favorite patch of Joshua Trees that we saw back in January. Upon reaching Lake Isabella nestled in the Sierras, we branched off from the rest of the group and headed home.
Mike and I had a wonderful trip, and hope you enjoy the pictures. There are a lot of them, and be warned that you'll see a lot of pics of cars…but after all, that's what this trip was all about!
Here are the pictures from Friday:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaMWjduzcs1Fy8
Here are the pictures from Saturday:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaMWjduzcs1Fz4
Here are the pictures from Sunday:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaMWjduzcs1F0k¬ag=1
No comments:
Post a Comment