Tahoe to Long Beach

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When we left Tahoe, we drove back to Crowley Lake to rejoin our RV which we left hooked up at the Crowley Lake RV Park.  After getting settled back in we spent two nights there before making the drive to Acton, CA.

This time we spent one night at the Acton/Los Angeles KOA North just to break up the drive and to not finish our drive battling it out on the LA freeways.  After this one night in Acton we drove through LA to reach Long Beach.

Long Beach Bike Path

During our 11 days in Long Beach we were able to check in with some family and friends and catch up on some medical appointments.

Next stop:  Morro Bay, CA

Lake Tahoe

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We left our RV parked near Crowley Lake and made the drive to Lake Tahoe to visit with our friends Steve, Wende and Brady.  It’s always fun to spend time with them but summer in Tahoe at their nice home is special.

Lake Tahoe is a truly beautiful place at any time but summer is especially nice with a pleasant climate, clean mountain air, the blue lake and the variety of colors in the snow topped mountains.  We enjoyed lots of hiking, biking and took a ride up the Heavenly gondola and did a little hiking around the ski runs.

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Lee Vining, CA

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Lee Vining put us close to Mono Lake and the June Lakes Scenic Loop.  Located just north of Mammoth Lakes, June Lakes is another collection of beautiful mountain lakes.  June Mountain is a small ski area (7 lifts) which is affilated with the much larger Mammoth Mountain ski area.

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Mono Lake is a very interesting lake, ecologically and socially.  Since it has no outlet the water in Mono Lake is very salty, 2 to 3 times higher concentration of salt than the ocean.  As a result there are no fish in Mono Lake but that doesn’t mean that it is lifeless.  The lake has a massive population of tiny brine shrimp as well as alkaline flies.  The combination of the shrimp and flies attracts a wide variety of birds here.  Notably, the majority of California seagulls are hatched in Mono Lake.  There are also some migratory birds that stop here during their trip from Canada to South America.  Notably the Eared Grebe spends a few weeks here to molt and fuel up for their non-stop flight from Mono Lake to Ecuador and Columbia.  Interestingly, this bird is very efficient in the water but cannot walk on land.  It has to land and take off from water.  If it finds itself on land it will die there unless a human finds it and takes it to water.

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Mammoth Lakes, CA

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I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I’ve never visited this area during the summer.  I used to come here frequently to ski since it is the nearest major ski area to Southern California, about a 5 hour drive.  So this portion of our summer itinerary was built around a stop in Mammoth Lakes.  We parked at the Mammoth Mountain RV Park.

Sadly, one of the major areas I wanted to visit here, Devil’s Postpile National Monument was closed to allow for repairs to the road that leads to it necessitated by winter storms.  But there’s still plenty to see and do here.

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Crowley Lake

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Crowley Lake is a water reservoir operated by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.  It’s located in the eastern Sierra mountains alongside US 395 about 28 miles north of Bishop, CA.

Crowley Lake

I previously mentioned that we cut short our time in Acton and made new plans.  We were supposed to be in Acton until 7/7, then move to Lone Pine, CA, for 3 days and then on to Crowley Lake on 7/10.  But when the temp in Acton began to rise past 100 and was forecast to go even higher we began to look for alternatives.  Since Lone Pine daily high temps were expected to exceed 100 degrees as well, we decided to skip that and go directly to Crowley Lake since this would put us at a higher elevation and somewhat lower temps.  We were able to find space at Crowley Lake Fish Camp starting on 7/6.  We then moved to Crowley Lake RV Park on 7/10 as previously planned.

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