OFF TO BISHOP--

We were on the road by 0405 this morning. The reason for the EARLY hour was to be ahead of the morning commute traffic around Rte. 60 and I-10 in Riverside County. We succeeded and had a very easy drive up to Bishop. The route takes you North on I-15 to the junction with US 395. This highway takes you North along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Usually there is quite a bit of snow on the peaks but this year there was very little. We really did not see any snow until we reached Lone Pine and there was scant snow around Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in California at 14,000+ft. The snow pack was about 40% below normal or average this year. California is already in a droit situation, and has had about two hundred more forest fires than normal for this time of year.

The day started out with some high cloudiness which persisted until mid-day. We did see a brilliant sundog which was quite brilliant as we were merging with Rte. 395. Regrettably there was no place to turn off for a photo op. A sundog occurs 22˚ from the sun and is a result of bending of the sun rays and the light passes through ice crystals. This one was quite brilliant but did not last long enough for us to get off the highway and photograph it.

This afternoon we watched mules in a couple of driving classes. One of our friends came away with a First, Third, and Fourth in three classes. Amy has a beautiful mule and they did very well. I will post pictures tomorrow.

We went to dinner at a very good Mexican Restaurant, Amigos, in Bishop. The special tonight was baby lobster enchiladas. They were delicious. We found this restaurant a few years back and usually go to dinner here a minimum of two times in the five or six days we are in town.

Off to bed. My daughter has a dressage class tomorrow at o 0800, and I am to be there to photograph the event. There will also be English jumping classes which are also fun to photograph.