We left the Bakersfield area and moved to Lone Pine, California. As our next stop is Death Valley this stop made sense to break up the trip. We have never stopped here before but had driven the highway, US 395, a few times when we lived in Southern California years ago. We found a gem, especially this time of year. The weather was just great. It would get up into the 60’s during the day and high 30’s at night with the skies as clear as anything. It made for star gazing at night and great views of the mountains on both sides of town. Lone Pine is the gateway to Mt. Whitney, highest point in the lower 48 states.
First, here are the views we had from our RV park.
We took a drive on the road to Mt. Whitney but decided to turn around before we started to get far up the mountain. The road becomes very narrow as it climbs the mountain plus there was snow a few miles up. I was concerned that we would not have a place to turn the big red truck around.
This area was used for filming of many movies and TV shows over the years. Mainly westerns were filmed here, the last one being Django Unchained. With this film history the town has created a little film museum that is a must see. It has to have one of the largest movie poster collections I have ever seen. It has great merchandising items from the Hop-a-long Cassidy movies and the Lone Ranger.
Our next stop was the Manzanar War Relocation Center. This is one of the camps set up to house Japanese Americans on the west coast that were relocated after Pearl Harbor. Only the auditorium building and a watch tower remain, but they do have a great museum in the auditorium and have created a driving route showing you the layout of the entire camp.
Next up, Death Valley.
Route: From Bakersfield we took Highway 58 east to Highway 14 north to US 395 north to Lone Pine.
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