HIGHWAY 395 ...further

WE DROVE ON….

photographs bt Paul G Ryan

We drove on… toward  beginnings of settlements, there were signs to places that are still out of our sight.

Alongside the rising peaks.

Beyond “FRESH JERKY”

The urban world at the outskirts of LONE PINE

More speed limit signs - 35 MPH - that pop up quickly and unobtrusively. A source of local revenue

Buildings cluster together in the context of expansive land. Like herds of animals.

Buildings adjacent to buildings – new and old  - there may be as many closures , but  replaced  by regenerated new establishments.

The promise of decent Coffee, to which I’m addicted, will always get me to stop.

Every time I drive through, a favorite coffee shop has closed and a new one opened

The land is tamed - locally -farms and cattle - but for 320 miles there is no all-weather passage across the Sierra.

Once on this highway, my son Lucas was along and on the way home we talked about lizards. He always wanted one, a Bearded Dragon lizard. There was a Pet store in Lone Pine that was supposed to have them. They did.

SPIKEY

He called him Spikey. Further along we stopped to pick up some gravel and volcanic earth for his cage. Spikey lived in our Santa Monicas house and ate crickets. Then a friend whose wife was allergic to fur bearing creatures loved Spikey so Lucas gave him to her.

Along the way the ghosts of the past echo from Manzanar, the prison camp that held Japanese civilians torn from their California homes in WWII.  Remnants of the fenced in isolation. Now a tourist attraction - I stopped and bought a “Wing Nuts” hat.They were  a small group of model airplane builder prisoners who found a way to alleviate the boredom of isolation in high mountain confinement. My Boston youth was wrapped up with model airplanes in those same times. I empathized.

Cowboy hatted ghosts still hide in the Alabama Hills north of Lone Pine, where John Wayne and Ben Johnson played movie cowboy chasing heroes for John Ford films.

Once - I drove off 395 onto a dirt road that wound up to a high mountain pond - there are many here amongst the rocks - and the water is very very cold. Water that had had been snow very recently.

For many miles the promise of snow seemed distant but after Bishop the road rises and the turn into Mammoth abruptly puts us into winter as it should be.. And snow tires and tire chains.

The drive home always seems so much longer…