Day 32 - End of Trip: June Lake, CA

~ Just the Facts ~

Camping:  Driveway surfing at Liza's parent's place in Mountains

Restaurants:   June Lake Brewery & Ohana's Food Cart, Tiger Bar, Mobil Station, Mono Inn, Silver Lake Resort 

Activities:   Mono Lake Bird Walk, Gage's running camp, White Mountain Wild Horses

June Lake is a beautiful little mountain town in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains.  It's at 7600 feet so the elevation takes some getting used to.  Gage was going to running camp in Mammoth for the week and we were staying at Liza's parents' home in June Lake.  What a spot.  

Acclimating is always difficult.  You have to make sure to drink lots of water and take pain reliever as needed and eat, even if you don't feel like it.  After a couple-three days, you will feel more like yourself.  Luckily, we'd been at 5,000 or so feet for a while so we didn't have that much acclimating to do.  

Gage spent the week doing two runs a week in preparation for a 10 mile run later in the week.  Mammoth is a bit higher at 8,000+ feet so he was working hard!  The kids got to have a lot of fun, too.  They visited local hot springs, swam in June Lake, and ate pies while very high in the Sierras.  

Liza took this panorama too far, making a straight beach look like a peninsula.  

While he was running, the rest of us were playing.  Liza went on a bird walk at Mono Lake, a nearby salt water lake that is a hot bed of birding activity.  

Mono Lake is an ancient inland sea.  It is the nesting place of millions of birds, including California Gulls.  

Liza and her stepdad, Igor, saw lots of amazing birds but I only included a couple here.  The magpie because they are such awesome birds.  And, the kestrel on the tufa tower because they were the most memorable bird of the day.  There was a family of kestrels near the parking lot and they flew around us all morning putting on quite a show!  

When we weren't watching birds, we drove out and explored the high desert of the eastern Sierras.  The best day was a drive out to see the wild horses at Adobe Valley.  They aren't exactly mustangs but they are wild.  The herd is managed to be around 75 horses.  We had just enough time to drive to the place they are usually seen and voila, there they were.  

Road shots by Greg

You see the horses in the shot, don't you? 

Greg enjoys taking pictures of the road ahead.  Liza enjoys capturing this view! 

We also went to see Ant-Man and ate out a few times.  We hung out with the parents and generally recovered from a long, but very fun, trip.  On Thursday, Greg and Ruth drove home early in the morning.  Liza picked Gage up from camp on Thursday night and we headed home on Friday morning, waving a sad goodbye to the parents.  

It was good to be home but there are many places on this trip.  The trip was awesome.  The journey really is the thing.