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Day 10,

August 1^st.

 

Packed up quickly in the morning, got some orange juice and headed back on the road.

It was much different here, as the air was cool with pine tree smell around.

Going down and up little hills, I stopped by the bears sign and took a picture.

Two cyclists passed me, and I think I first took a picture of them, before they decided to turn around and talk to me. It wasn’t like they were coming back to destroy the camera. J

Regular talk about the touring and discussing each other’s bikes. They came to Mammoth Lakes resort in their RVs and were enjoying a cool morning ride.

 

After they left, I got on the bike and for some time tried to catch up with them, and when I was actually approaching them at the next hill, they turned off the road. J

 

Some more cycling on the mountain road with the pine forest around…

At that time, I especially clearly realized that most traffic on the road consisted of huge RV’s, so I stopped to take a picture of one of them.

 

Soon, I approached a view of the big lake – which is called Mono Lake. I went down one of the roads that goes to its shores and rested there for a while. After pushing the bicycle off the road, I noticed dozens of little thorns all over the tires, and also in my shoes. This was horrible. I picked up the bike and carried it back to the road hoping none of the thorns punctured the tubes.

 

In several more miles, I arrived into a town called Lee Vining. The sky was cloudy, so I decided not to go any further today and spend the rest of the time discovering the town. I was also pretty tired from the yesterday’s hill.

 

Lee Vining happens to be an eastern gate to Yosemite National Park, and there was a road going to Tioga Pass. Originally, it was in my plans to take a route through the park, but since the trip was going so slow, getting more to the west didn’t sound like a good idea. I decided not to do it. Another big reason, is that Tioga pass was suppose to be a huge climb, which I absolutely didn’t feel like doing anymore, especially taking in consideration the highway gears of my bike.

 

Town consisted of several gift shops, restaurants, gas stations and some residential houses to the left of the road if going north, which were on the foothills of the toll mountains.

As I heard from a man working in a gift shop, bears that live in those mountain, sometimes come to town in the late fall, early winter, attracted by the smells of foods left in dumpsters.

 

I sat at the big old wooden telegraph pole behind the gas station, to have a lunch. Momentarily a dozens of seagulls landed near by asking for food. Still being ignorant at that time, I threw several pieces of bread which they would even catch in the air. Later I learned that it’s very dangerous for the animals to get used to food from the people, as they can stop searching for their natural food and start to depend on giveouts. Bread also isn’t exactly good for their stomachs and eating too much could cause more problems. As I’ve been told later, there was PLENTY of food for them around the lake at this time.

Meanwhile, I was very astonished to look at these birds. They were making really strange noise, with the head pointing down, and then up, making a loud sound for three or four times. Another weird thing was that if I threw the bread close to one particular bird, the rest of them would get mad at the bird for such injustice and try to attack it. The birds also showed less and less fear and were screaming a foot or two from me.

 

Lee Vining has a beautiful visitor center, where tourists are presented with an opportunity to watch an amazing movie showing the beauty of the Mono Lake and providing essential information about its history and present condition.

I wandered around the visitor center where they also had a cool animal display, until it closed at 5.

 

Not far from the center, was a local museum, which was basically a single room, old building. There were few old tractors and an excavator, standing on a neatly trimmed green grass lawn.

Museum featured old household, agricultural and military items. Talking to an older man in the front, I found out that the lake was discovered by some cavalry chasing the Indians and town was named after a gold prospector Leroy Vining.

 

When I walked out of museum, I saw a man coming on a bike with panniers. Wow, first encounter with another long-distance rider. The man was tall, approximately 40-45 years old. He was dressed very simply, with old running shoes and even older sun faded house pants. The bike was also a composition of different kinds of components, custom tires etc. It turned out that he is a really experienced cyclists, who even has or had his own bicycle shop and the bike was optimal for what he was doing. Indeed, as I noticed, he had three gears on the front chain ring and a big one on the rear. I was really surprised to hear that he never walks on hills. Using a great chance to ask someone knowledgeable, he was convinced that the nock I was hearing was coming from the bottom bracket. Something about the nut there that required to be tightened up with HUGE ranches, which was always too lose on many Schwinns he previously worked on. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the tool, but tightened up the pedal cage with an alien wrench, which I didn’t have.  The man was heading to Yosemite after a three or four days tour from the north, where he was suppose to meet his wife and go back to San Francisco. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down his name, but I really enjoyed talking to him and was thankful for his help and shared information.

 

He also said that last night a bear got all his food from the metal container where he hid it. As he told me, he heard the bear opening up the top of the container somewhere in the middle of the night, a hundred feet away, but didn’t want to go and do anything about it. Indeed, smart choice.

The rain started to drizzle again when he left. I went to the laundry room and plugged the camera in the outlet to get charged. Not bad, considering it’s a first time in 10 days when it needs charging.

 

I leaned the biked against the laundry wall and went across the street to a gift shop. There were many kinds of animal skins, and a head of the muss attached to the wall. From the owner, I found out that the Muss was from Alaska. It has been on the wall for nearly 5 years but was finally sold only the day before, for the price of $4900.

 

When the camera was ready, I went to the city park to set up the tent. By this time it was already dark. I found a great spot on the grass, behind the bushes, which was pretty far enough from the walkway. There weren’t any people at this time anyway. I also went to the park's bathroom and took advantage of the running water and the evening privacy, to take somewhat like a shower. J

 

Plenty of events today, yet, little progress. Total from Mammoth Lakes – 35 miles.

 

 

 

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