Today we took my father's (Bart's) advice and drove down the Eastern side of California on 395 South. Glenn and I agree that this route was the most amazing interstate driving either of us have ever been on. Going South on 395 one passes one incredible Mountain after another as the Sierra Nevada's take on different forms.

Part way down we stopped at Mono Lake to see the Tufa towers. The towers are created when the calcium in the fresh water bubbling up from underground springs, combines with the carbonite in the lake to form limestone towers throughout the lake. The lake is a sister lake to the Great Salt Lake in Utah and is home to many rare migrating birds throughout different times of the year.

After exploring the towers at Mono Lake we hiked up to a recently (600 years ago) active volcano in the Mono Lake volcano chain to check out Panum Crater.

This was one of the OMG moments - when the magma from the volcano cools VERY quickly it turns into pumice and obsidian. If you don't remember what Obsidian looks like, it is a very striking, shiny black rock that we don't see very often, it is naturally occurring glass. The amazing thing was the mountain was covered in Obsidian in piles throughout the crater. Pumice for you Monty Python fans is rock that floats, just like witches.

To make our hike even more exciting we had to run down the rim back to the car to beat a lightening and thunder storm advancing towards us.

The rest of the trip was spent driving, looking out the window gawking at the Sierra Nevadas while driving to Uncle John's in Mission Viego.