I'm learning to fly Around the clouds But what goes up Must come down

The last three days have mostly been travel days, getting back down to sea level and drawing closer to home.

Thursday I set off from Springdale early in the morning, enjoying the first light hitting the canyon walls surrounding the town while getting the car packed and prepped for the drive. The destination for the day was Bishop with a drive through Vegas and a short stop in Death Valley along the way. The few trips I’ve taken to Vegas I’ve always enjoyed watching the chaos on Vegas Boulevard so it seemed a good opportunity to participate. I rolled through around 9:30am though so traffic was much more mild, still fun though.

After Vegas I headed on to Death Valley where the primary attraction was the Father Crowley overlook, otherwise known as Rainbow Canyon or Star Wars Canyon. This is the canyon that the military uses for low level flight training and I was hoping to catch some activity. There’s no set schedule for training flights though and it was quiet while I was there, otherwise the song lyric title for this post would have been from Highway to the Danger Zone. I did at least get to stop at the Borax mine which I find very fascinating. The economics on that whole operation just don’t make sense to me. Stuff must have been like gold back then.

After Death Valley I did get to experience something different, bugs, lots of bugs. Like a plague of locusts. Tons of them littered the ground and ultimately the windshield and front of my car. I hope the GoPro captured this adequately. The rest of the drive was more scenic; I had the Sierra Nevada mountain range filling the windshield instead of bugs. The day was full of ups and downs. Starting around 4k ft in Springdale, dropping all the way below sea level in Death Valley and ultimately ending the day back at 4k ft.

Friday morning was a later start with a short 260 mile drive from Bishop to Folsom with some light sightseeing planned to fill the time. I was originally going to stop at Lake Tahoe on the way but decided on Mono Lake instead. The drive up 395 is always beautiful and this time of year with so much snow in the mountains made it even better. Mono Lake is just a short drive up from Bishop and I did the full walking loop around the tufa formations. It seemed like there was more signage than last time I was there, certainly more people.

After Mono I needed to cross the mountains to get over to Folsom and google had selected Hwy89. I’m not sure if google/waze learn over time what kinds of roads you like, sort of like Spotify, but this one definitely gets a thumbs up. The initial climb is pretty steep with lots of switchbacks and amazing views into the valleys below. From there it’s a high plateau still with very deep snow along the road before eventually descending on the other side. As the drive continued I was also being reintroduced to civilization and other drivers. After being on rural highways for so long this was a bit of culture shock. California drivers are a special breed. The reason for the Folsom stop was to catch up with friends from work. With the rest of my team being located there it’s difficult to get together so this was a rare treat. It also helped jog my memory on what I’ll be returning to in a little over a week, a slow reboot.

Saturday was the first pure transit day since the beginning of the trip, with no scenic diversions. The route today was planned to mostly avoid the interstate with just a brief stint on the way to Redding. From there to the coast was via Hwy299 which was another fantastic drive. There was more traffic here and it seems to be actively patrolled by CHP so this was definitely more of a cruise and enjoying the scenery on a road that meandered along the way.

This brings me to Crescent City, just 330 miles from home, and truly back at sea level; the ocean is right across the street from the hotel. Tomorrow the plan is to spend the day hiking various trails in the redwood forests, one final outing before aiming the car north for the drive home.