Las Vegas to Bishop

There's no reason to travel along Highway 95 out of Las Vegas unless you have a definite destination in mind, because there's a heck of a lot of nothing for miles and miles. At first, I did not think there would be very many photo opportunities along the way, but found out if you're willing to pull off the road at the first sign - literally a sign - then there's all kinds of interesting things to see.

As I said before, we've been hitting the road earlier every day. Today, we were headed out of town by 7 a.m. because we wanted to get to Bishop early enough to locate the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. We saw them about nine years ago, but we couldn't remember how we got there, other than the forest was near Bishop.

The day started off with a beautiful sunrise, as it seems most are over the desert. As deserts go, the Amargosa Desert is pretty empty. Always on the lookout for wildlife, we spotted one skinny coyote, not out in the bushes, but crossing the road. After 80 or so miles we pulled into a gas station/store called Fort Amargosa. The only comment: the filthiest bathroom and stale candy (Dots).

Sunrise over Vegas

On the road again!

Filthy bathrooms and stale candy. Great stop.

I mentioned that Jerome, AZ had 14 brothels, all long gone. Nevada has the real thing, two in fact, along 95, the Angel's Ladies, which offers free all-night parking for truckers, and down the road the Shady Girls Bordello (a romantic name for a very sad desperate occupation).

Notice the crashed plane behind the sign. Don't know

the significance of it, if any, but an unusual way to

attract business to a brothel.

A third brothel, long closed marked the turnoff on Highway 266 to Bishop. One thing we've discovered on this trip, or rather were reminded of, no matter how empty or destitute looking the land is, someone has been here before and many worked, lived and died here. There are countless ruins of mining towns and homesteads out there and we stopped to see a few.

When we reached where Highway 168 intersects 266 what a surprise was in store. We saw perhaps 100 cyclists coming down the steep mountain road and for the next 49 miles they kept coming. Two things were amazing: all these men and women were riding their bikes in the desert (though the weather was mild) and this was about 7,000 feet elevation. They had a long climb up and then a very fast descent.

No place to break down. No cell signal, no help.

The abandoned mining camp, Palmetto, where up to 200

miners dug for silver from 1866 to 1906.

Nice stone work.

It was on 168 that we discovered the turnoff to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Ten miles up a very twisty road and we came on them and they are magnificent. The forest is at 10,000 feet altitude; it was crystal clear and cold. What makes the Bristlecone Pine particularly fascinating is that a number of them are over 4,000 years old, and the oldest one found, called Methuselah, is 4,800 years old, making it the oldest living tree on earth - as far as anyone knows, I suppose. The forestry department does not say which tree is Methuselah to prevent it from being damaged. We saw baby Bristlecone trees only five or six feet tall that were 80 years old. One dead tree is believed to have fallen in the year 1654 and was already several thousand years old when it died.

From counting growth rings and carbon dating, scientist

believe this tree fell in the 1600s and was a couple

thousand years old when it died.

This tree is perhaps more than 4,000 years old.

Two giant Bristlecone Pines. In the background what we

thought was just a bit of remaining snow in the mountains are

actually glaciers left from the last ice age, 10,000 years ago.

While driving up to the Bristlecones we pulled off at a campsite and discovered a number of people with telescopes. We stopped and asked what they were looking at and it was Venus. Some of them had driving from the Los Angeles area. They said you can see Venus at night from anywhere, but if you want to see it really clear this was the place to come. We were at 9,000 feet then. They let us look through the telescope and by gosh there it was, like we've never seen it before. Really fascinating.

Amateur (we think) astronomers study Venus from 9,000 feet.

We came across a couple ghost towns and one little town with people still living in it called Lida. We fell in love and want to move there (LOL). Not really.

A little fixer-upper we're thinking of making an offer for

if the price is right.

In the home stretch.

Bishop is full of people. It always seems to be, no matter what time of the year. We were going to stay through Sunday in order to see the trees, but since we've already done that, we're leaving tomorrow morning. We hope to see some more sights and put them up to close out our little adventure.