This photo reminded me of a little road trip I took one Labor Day weekend…
Tuesday, 3 September 1996
Labor Day weekend draws to a close. I managed to extend mine by one day because I agreed to work on Saturday and Sunday a week ago. I was originally supposed to get both last Thursday and Friday off in exchange for my effort, but since I only actually worked about 8 hours over the whole weekend I didn’t feel right taking two days and it was obvious by Wednesday that the job I was involved with wasn’t going to get finished if I didn’t work at least part of the day on Friday, I opted instead for splitting the minute my work was finished on Friday (around 3 p.m.) and taking all of today off.
I did get out of town however, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve been wanting to see Mono Lake for the longest time, so I decided to pack an overnight bag and head over the mountains to see it. The trip entailed driving through Yosemite, a place I’d never really had any desire to visit. That immediately changed once I was in the park. Next time, Yosemite is going to be the end, instead of a means to an end. I can’t say how many times I rounded a corner and gasped, “Oh ma god!” It was absolutely incredible! I shot almost three rolls of film, and I didn’t even go down into Yosemite Valley. This will definitely require further investigation at a later date.
I was kind of disappointed with Mono Lake. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t what I encountered. I’d believed that most of the thing had already dried up, leaving miles and miles of “tufa” towers to explore. Not so. And I should have brought my swim trunks, because swimming was definitely allowed. Another “next time”, I suppose.
My original plans were to stay overnight in Lee Vining, the small town just to the west of the Lake. Well, when I got there, I didn’t exactly like the look of the place, and the Best Western looked way more expensive than what I wanted to spend, so I kind of left everything up in the air while I went out to explore the “tufa” at the southern part of the lake.
Several hours later, I decided I better start thinking about what I wanted to do about overnight accommodations. I looked in my Motel 6 guide, and discovered there was a place about 25 miles south in Mammoth Lakes. I drove down there only to discover that it was full. I returned to Lee Vining (it was around 6:30 at this point) and discovered that not only the Best Western, but all the motels in town were full. I called Michael and told him not to panic if he heard the garage door go up at 2 a.m.; I was heading home. The drive back was horrendous. Because of the fires in Yosemite, the first part of the trip was like driving through red fog. By the time I got past that area and onto highway 108 or whatever, it was nearly dark, and I was now faced with driving the next sixty or so miles on a road which consisted of continuous hairpins and switchbacks, limiting my top speed to around 25 miles per hour. Add to that, this was a road I was totally unfamiliar with.
If there is any place in California, however, where an alien abduction is possible, it’s on that road. I passed maybe five or six cars during the entire journey, and half expected to round a corner and see a UFO in the sitting in the middle of the road. Alas, no missing time, no UFOs. Not even so much as an anomalous light in the sky. Bummer, dude.
I did stop and pulled off at one point because the stars were screaming out at me. I got out, listened to the various sounds of the nighttime forest (hoping a bear wasn’t eyeing me as a midnight snack) and set up my camera and tripod. I snapped several time exposures of the sky.* I hope at least some of them will turn out, because it’s very hard to put into words the wonder of that experience. The Milky Way was out in force and the sky wasn’t even completely dark yet. Jupiter in the south in Sagittarius was like a beacon, and through binoculars, it’s moons were clearly visible.
After I finally got out of the mountains and back into “civilization” I stopped at McDonalds and grabbed a bite to eat around 11. I’d been driving almost non-stop for 14 hours at that point and I was beginning to feel very, very tired. I knew I had to do something if I expected to make it home and not kill myself and someone else on the road. It was just the break I needed, and I continued on my way much refreshed.
*I don’t know what had happened, but the roll of film these pictures were on was nowhere to be found . I know I rewound the film and removed the canister from the camera after I’d taken the photos and—so I thought—dropped it in my bag in the trunk. (It as so dark I didn’t actually see it go in, but I emptied the bag completely and tore the trunk apart when I got home and it was nowhere to be found.) All I can figure out is that I must’ve dropped it on the road, but I think I would’ve heard it hit the pavement if that had been the case.
Or maybe aliens abducted the film, but not me…
In any case, it remains one of the great mysteries of my life, and that’s why photos like the one above resonate so deeply with me because that’s exactly what the sky looked like on that dark, lonely mountain road.