Mother road!

 8:01 am - Sunday - October 12th - Bishop, CA - 38° F, humidity 19%, wind 5 mph out of the north by northwest.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 73° F.  On this date in 2018 we were overnighting in a Walmart parking lot in Hagerstown, MD.....

....on our way to Campbellsville, KY to work at Amazon for the final time in our nomadic journeys.

We awoke to windless skies Saturday morning, which was a nice change from Friday.  Our Jello plan was to leave the Elks Lodge by 8 am to head over to the local Maverick fuel station to top off the diesel tank of our 1982 Newell Classic before we reenter California where all fuel prices are at least $1 to $1.50 higher than Nevada or Arizona.  With a full tank we can make it all the way to Yuma, AZ without having to refuel.  Just to remind you, we have a 180 gallon diesel tank, and a $1 difference in price adds up to $180 more per tank....of course .50 cents more adds another $90 ($270 more per tank....ouch!), so taking on diesel in Nevada and/or Arizona is a requisite.

The last couple of times we've come through Gardnerville, NV to stay at the Elks Lodge we didn't insert the VW until after we've taken on diesel, and in this case until after we've added diesel, and aired up our four Michelin trailer tires.  By the time we topped off our tank with 52 gallons of diesel, aired up the tires, and inserted the VW it was 8:40 am, and time to head south to Bishop, CA.  

The distance from Gardnerville to Bishop is around 147 miles from the Maverick station, so it's not a long day, but it is one of the most beautiful drives anywhere in the USA.  TLE and I refer to this section of US-395 as our "Mother Road'.  There were winds forecast for the afternoon, but we would be in Bishop before 12 pm, which is why we left as early as we could from Gardnerville.

Around 30 minutes after leaving Gardnerville we reentered California near Topaz Lake, and I will let the pictures TLE took tell the story....

....soon we were passing through Walker, CA and beginning the long 20 mile climb along the Walker River to Devil's Gate Summit.....

....that's Devil's Gate Summit just over that hill in the background.  We then dropped down into Bridgeport, CA, then began the 10 mile climb to Conway Summit....the quaking aspens are in full Fall color now....

.....we've been driving up this long uphill to Conway Summit since the late 50's, and when you do it in the 2nd week of October you will be treated to rivers of gold cascading down the mountain sides....

.....soon we crested Conway summit, and began the descent to Lee Vining, CA....you can see Mono Lake in the distance....

....as we continued southward we passed by June Lake, and Mammoth Lakes, CA, and were soon descending Sherwin Grade into Bishop, CA....

.....we arrived at the Tri County Fairgrounds in Bishop, CA around 11:30 am to find the large grassy area where we usually park completely filled with RV's and horse trailers.  We didn't realize there was a horse competition this weekend....doh!  I parked our 62' in front of the office (closed on Saturdays and Sunday) and walked out to the field to see if I could find a spot for us, and found two possible sites.  I quickly settled on one of them, and walked back to tell TLE, and move the Newell into the site.....

....it's a little 'cheek by jowl', but we've got water and 60 amps of electric (30 amps per leg), so we're set for a couple of days before we continue our trek to SoCal, and our kids.

Around 4:30 pm we walked over to Aaron Schat's Roadhouse for dinner.  We've never eaten there in all the years we've been passing though Bishop, so thought it was time we did....

.....we both ordered a pint of their Black Butte Porter.  For entrees TLE had a 1/2 Rueben with a dinner salad, and I their Walker Texas Ranger Burger (hamburger paddy, bacon, cheese, onions, BBQ sauce) with fries. Both were very yummy!  Of course, we chose their alfresco dining option.  By the way, Aaron Schat is related to Eric Schat of Schat's Bakery fame, which is just a block further down the street.

We walked to and from the Roadhouse, and returned just around 5:30 pm.....just in time to watch the 2nd half of the USC Trojans verses to Michigan Wolverines at the L.A. Colosseum.  After losing a heartbreaker to Illinois in the final seconds two weeks ago USC came ready to play, totally dominating both sides of the line of scrimmage, and winning easily 31-13.  One of the best defensive performances by a USC team in years.  I hope this defensive trend continues!

Thanks for stopping by!