GOIN' BACK TO MIAMI

     After a 5000-mile trek across America we're back in Miami. Now I have time to tell you about canyons, coyotes and delicious frosted mugs of beer. Our crossing began on Monterey Bay and a few hours later we being humbled, once more, by Yosemite National Park.
 

    El Capitan was there to greet us. We marveled  that a young man had climbed its 3000-foot face, a few months earlier, using only his hands and feet  (no rope!). I tried ambling up a rock pile at its base but found it too difficult.

   Yosemite Valley is a crowded as the Coconut Grove art festival. We braved the traffic, took a quick look, then headed to the quieter eastern side.  

    You could almost hear a pine needle drop in Tuolome Meadow. The eastern half of Yosemite was almost a ghost park, more bears and elk than people. Perfect except the campgrounds were closed for the winter.

   We had to  go up 10,000 feet, just outside the park, to find a campsite above Saddlebag Lake. On late September nights the temperature falls below freezing. Morning ice on the windshield was a novelty,  something you don't often find in South Florida.

    
    On Sept. 29th we dropped down to visit Mono Lake. That's the one decimated by Los Angeles developers in the 1940's. Once a part of North America's inland sea, this salt water expanse had been fed by mountain streams for millions of years. Los Angeles diverted the lake's water supply for its own use (huge pipes -and gravity- take it 500 miles south now).

    What's left? A much smaller, saltier lake. 




It's lowered water level leave coral reef-like structures called "tufas" exposed. Only tiny shrimp and fly larvae can live in it. It's not the best place to snorkel.

    Visiting the two-mile pond was a strange, surreal experience. We hope the 40-year campaign to "save Mono Lake" eventually succeeds.

     After being so cold the night before we were looking forward to Beatty, Nevada's hot springs.
When we got there we learned it had been closed down by the health department (too many cooties).  We had to settle for hot showers at a nearly RV park.
     It's manager, "Gypsy Mike", told us he loves this desolate town which bills itself as "The Gateway to Death Valley".
    "We got no crime here", he said, "just 900 happy residents".  They also have two 24/7
casinos and a brothel, a string of old red trailers for "Angel's Ladies".

       What is it about a wrecked airplane that beckons the lonely?
             

                    ______________________ 

(Next stop, Zion's National Park)