We got back from the Grand Canyon tour sooner than I expected. So we set out on the next leg of our holiday, about 1030am.

It took about six hours to get to Mammoth Lakes. It is a skiing community. The drifts of snow are about two meters deep here, but it is melting away.

The drive had a rather quiet start. The youngen, without fail, fell asleep about half an hour into the drive.

The scenery was quite alien. Big expanses of rock, dirt, native bush about 50cm high grey green in colour. I didn't stop, but had a very long time to observe. There were also trees that looked like big Agave or Yucca, which I later found out were Joshua Trees, and belong to the same family. In the distance there were snow covered mountains, it was a spectacular sight. I drove, skirting Death Valley, he slept, which was probably good because I passed a number of homes, demountable in style with lots of sun bleaching, and weathering, These were Brothels, in the middle of nowhere, with names of the establishments of Angels and Shady Ladys, offering free parking............. A god send in the middle of nowhere...... Anyway, I didn't have to say NO!

Slowly we wound our way into the hills, that turned into the snow covered mountains. It really was beautiful. The day was clear, sky blue, it was only about 13C outside but the sun shining in the car, it was perfect.There were two of us awake by then, only one appreciating the ever changing vistas, the other wanting food. There were not many places to get nourishment for a youngster unless you want jerky made from moose, elk, buffalo, roadkill......... So thankfully we finally came to a more inhabited area, which means they had McDonalds........

So we arrived at Mammoth Lakes, to our ski lodge accommodation, not knowing this and looked much better on the web. But nice people. Oh, it comes with a warning to remove all food stuffs, even empty coffee cups from car as it's bear season and they will pull the car apart just to get a tea bag............