Day 19: Battle Mountain NV - Bishop CA

Natch now that the races are all over for another twelvemonth, the weather this morning appeared perfect for going out to the 305 and burning rubber.  It seems that some of the more durable Dutch types got to bed about 04:30 and yet Aniek claims to have still woken up at 06:00 thinking she should be going racing.  There may be a word for this.  What with having to repack the Teetering Piles of Crap that had inveigled their way into every conceivable corner of room 210, not to mention saying goodbye to the people with the foresight not to get up too early¹ it was almost 10:00 by the time I got going.

Not quite the end of the event, though, as out on the 305 there was course unmantling going on, the Italians were up at the start doing I know not what and, at the 2.5 mile marker, a bunch of weary Canadians looking for Alan's missing glasses.  The 360 miles to Bishop contained about half a dozen places where navigation was required and most of it looks the same, at least until you get over Anchorite Summit and are greeted by the Lofty and SNO-capped peaks of the Sierras.

Highway 361 revisited

The Lofty and SNO-capped peaks of the Sierras, yesterday

The only thing worth stopping for is Mono Lake, wot I have seen from a distance a Several of times but never stopped at.  My grate frend Mr Woolrich went there last year, though, and insisted I do stop there the next time I'm in those parts.  Which I was.  So I did.

Mono Lake

Tufas in Mono Lake

Ye smalle fowles, Mono Lake.  Plus a rock which appears to be wearing sunglasses...

The true spod will, or course, immediately recognise the tufas from the cover of "Wish You Were Here"; they are lumps of limestone left behind by springs, er, springing under the surface of the lake.  The lake itself is saltier than a cheap takeaway dinner but is a mecca for migratory birds who eat the brine flies and the brine shrimps which eat the algae in the lake.  It used to be a lot deeper until Los Angeles (the tick end of three hundred miles and one GBFO mountain range away) started abstracting water from the watercourses that feed the lake, a pattern repeated all the way down US-395 until it runs into the serious desert somewhere down there «==

The Automatic Diary is now officially Up To Date, and I have a headache and am going to bed.  Nighty-night!

1. And if Marieke and Arnold formerly of room 208 are feeling guilty about waking me up, don't.  Because you didn't.