The big drive

Today (Our original plan had been to leave on Saturday, but snowstorms and cold temperatures convinced us otherwise!) we drove to Bishop after a late and hectic start. Most of the preparation time was put into figuring out how to get two very important pieces of equipment into our Adventure Subie: the big crash pad, without which we would break our ankles, and the baby swing, without which we would die. Eventually we settled on attaching the pad to the roof.

There was a little snow on the road in South Lake, where we saw this sign while waiting at a light:


The color of the lake was incredible, so we stopped for pictures, bathroom and zoe feeding.

From South Lake, we crossed the mountains over to 395, passing the field of McMansions on the eastern slope (who ARE these people?). It was a beautiful time to be driving on one of my favorite roads in the world, so we stopped a few times for pictures.


Just south of the turnoff to Bodie, I noticed a CHP cruiser heading North. The officer in the cruiser took one look at me (knee deep in the snow with a tripod) pulled a U-turn and parked behind our car. The officer got out of the car and started walking towards me. At this point I was getting a little nervous -- It felt a little like those initial few seconds on the policecarcam before some hapless guy/gal gets Tazered. As I was thinking of a line more memorable than "Hey bro, don't Taze me!" for posterity, the officer was getting closer. I asked whether maybe I wasn't supposed to park on the shoulder but it turned out that he just wanted to see what I was taking pictures of (below).

I talked to him for a while, and he lamented not having his own camera in his car with him. It turned out that his "beat" is 395 from Bridgeport to the state line, and my first reaction was jealosy at driving such a great road all day long. Upon further reflection though, I'm guessing dealing with dirtbags and meth addicts every day might distract you from the views. Anyway, it was nice having a conversation with a cop which did NOT end up with me in handcuffs getting Mirandized for once (just kidding, Mom!).

We continued south past Mammoth, and Bishop was finally on the mileage signs -- just 20 more miles! After a long day of driving, I was perhaps going a little faster than I should have when I ended up behind a big white SUV. It was dark by now, and I was in no mood for someone doing exactly the speed limit in the passing lane, so I flashed my headlights and waited. After a little while, I decided that I would pass on the right, and I *might* have been exceeding the speed limit, and I *might* have come in a little close when I moved back over to the left lane. I sped off to get some distance between myself and the SUV, but was annoyed to see the SUV putting the hammer down. It was with great chagrin, one mile later that I saw blue and red lights flashing from ... an unmarked CHP SUV behind me! Now I'm no expert, but I was pretty sure that the CHP frown upon that kind of behavior. The cop turned out to be really nice, and for some unfathomable reason declined to give me a ticket! Not getting a ticket wasn't even on my radar (har har); I mean if I were that cop *I* would have given me a ticket and did a little dance while writing it out. Anyway, I spent all of my CHP lives on that one. Twenty minutes later, we finally arrived in Bishop.

Upon unpacking, we discovered one flaw in our "crash pad on the roof" approach: our crash pad was soaked and filthy!




In all, it took us eight hours total, which isn't too bad considering the conditions.

We had dinner at Las Palmas, where Zoe covetously eyed our Coronas.

You're going have to wait 21 more years for that, little one! Actually, just forget about alcohol entirely. and boys.