Posted by Karen on 09-Aug-2009
(Click photo for all 72 photos)
Today, I headed east towards Susanville and Highway 395, thinking I’d check out Honey Lake on the way home. In Susanville, I stopped at the Historic Rail Depot and checked out their little museum and chatted with a very nice docent. And even though Susanville is home to a large state prison, it’s a few miles outside of town, so I didn’t see it at all. Next on the agenda was Honey Lake, which shows up on Google maps as a huge lake right next to the highway. Well, it turns out that Honey Lake is a dry lakebed (at least during this time of year) and has no blue whatsoever, regardless of what Google shows! So then I decide to go check out Pyramid Lake in Nevada and start following the GPS to get there. After a few miles on a dirt road, I see that someone painted “Highway to Hell” (it’s okay to start singing now, I did) with an arrow on a rock pointing in the direction I was heading, I double checked my GPS and it really does say “2 miles to Highway 445″, okay I can go 2 more miles before I hit a “paved” highway for the last 30 miles. Well silly me *smacks forehead* this is Nevada and “highways” aren’t necessarily paved!! What the heck, I’ve come this far, I’m at the halfway point, so might as well keep going. I cross into the Indian Reservation and eventually arrive at Pyramid Lake and it is gorgeous! It’s huge and this very beautiful green-blue color with tufa’s on one end of it. I don’t venture down to the lake side because you need recreation permits (it’s on the Paiute Indian reservation) and since I don’t have one, I stick to the “highway”. At the southern end of the lake, the “highway” is paved and it is only about 30 miles to Reno from there. Pyramid Lake gets it’s name from a large pyramid shaped rock in the lake, very cool looking. Definately need to come back another time.
Posted by Karen on 26-Jul-2008
(Click photo for all 36 photos)
Day two at Hiwassee/Ocoee Scenic River State Park and the grasshoppers are still chirping. I have never heard grasshoppers go at it like this, my friends don’t even hear them, but man are they loud, so loud I feel like I have to yell to be heard over them when we talk. It rained a bit during the night, and a couple of the tents didn’t prove waterproof, so we started drying things out while making breakfast. While we were playing at the river, the rain started coming down hard, but since we were wet already, no need to stop playing in the water. Unfortunately, the tents got soaked, so we cut the camping trip short and I checked into the hotel that Bonnie and Jim were staying at. We all spend that afternoon hanging out at the Etowah L&N Train Depot, laughing, chatting and just having a good old time doing nothing. And when it got dark, we continued the “just hanging out” at the hotel lobby.
Posted by Karen on 30-Sep-2007
(192 photos)
Just outside of the town of Bishop, is Laws Museum. Now, I’ve driven by it a few times in the past, but it’s always been closed; this morning I made a point to check it out and I am so glad I did. This museum is huge and has one of the best collections of American historical artifacts I’ve seen. Laws started life as a railroad town in the 1800s and the original depot and agents house still remain. Other buildings from were brought there for preservation and it resembles a little railroad town now. Most of the building were open and have exhibits in them, from general merchandise to photography equipment, to typesetting and newspaper equipment, to medical equipment to a collection of bottles. There’s also Siamese twin lambs that have been stuffed–an unexpected sight for me! There’s a lot to explore on the 11 acres of the museum and the docents are nice and friendly. There were also shooting a television commercial there at the depot the day I visited, that was interesting to watch. I’m glad I spent a few hours checking it out, it’s well worth a visit.
