Day 10
5/24/24
We started out with breakfast at Alabama Hills Bakery in Lone Pine. Great food and we were serenaded by a white-haired man singing old rock toons. Mostly Bob Dylan. Nice.
On the way up to the Portal, we had to take a detour over Tuttle Creek Road, through the Alabama hills, then left on the Portal Road and up to heaven. Taking these roads again after so many years and so many memories was bittersweet, but glorious.
Poor Denise, listening to my stories all the way up the valley with me telling her this was here or that was there only to discover that my memory of each place was different than the reality. Now, I’m prefixing each tale with “as far as I recall…” That way I can stop the lies.
When we got up to the top, I found the perfect parking spot across from the outhouse. You never know when you might need one.
Before I even got the truck in park, Denise and Ginger were out the door. Denise was on a mission. There are rocks everywhere. It took quite a bit of time to find her and catch up. But I kept myself busy taking pictures and being drug down the road by Milo and Abigail.
Once together again, we were stopped by a nice couple Pete and Susan with 2 twin daughters, Petra and Lizzie. Milo is quite the attractor. After talking for a bit, we discovered that they would be going to the foot race at Cerro Gordo on Saturday AND they had seen Mom’s video interview at Cerro Gordo from last year. We talked for quite a while, and Petra and Lizzie were so bright and sweet, and I fell in love.
The girls and I discussed the dogs, and boys and the fact that girls are much smarter. We swapped life lessons and gave each other advise. They were way smarter than I was at that age. Yikes!!!
Meanwhile, I find out later that Denise, and the girl’s mother are taking bets on who would give out first Pete or me. Apparently, Pete can be a talker, but I gave him a run for his money because I had caffeine for breakfast.
This is the spot where you can hit the trail to hike to the top of Mt Whitney. “As far as I recall…” it was 1976, when Mom, Dad, Charlie and I came down this trail into the portal. We had backpacked to the top of Mt. Whitney from the backside. What an adventure. By the time we hit the top, it had rained, sleeted, snowed and we even had thunder and lightning. That was when mom stripped off our packs (aluminum lightning rods) and we dove under rocks to make sure we didn’t get struck.
After exploring and re-experiencing the days of old with brothers, cousins, parents, and grandparents, we headed back down the hill.
I drug poor Denise through the Alabama hills looking for the spot where my grandparents used to take us for picnics in the rocks. Our old spot was perfect, you drove through the rocks and into a great big opening. We used to go in the early evening so that we could use our imaginations to see different images in the rocks. As the sun went down, the images in the rocks changed. We had a ball. “Look grandma, it’s a frog, now it’s a snake wait its changed into a…” you can just imagine the fun we had.
It was a full day of fun and adventure, all 5 of us slept like rocks that night.
