Our 7th day on the road was spent viewing more iterations of dry, dusty, scrubby land which varied from flat as a pancake for twenty miles in front of you to brown-toned boulders piled on either side in novel arrangements. Roger and I both agreed by the time it was over that the route we took from Dinosaur, CO to Lee Vining, CA was the longest route you could do the distance with the maximum amount of desert. Why did we do it? Because we hadn’t taken that route before–often our profoundest motivation for planning our trips.

We did have a bit of excitement when out in the middle of nowhere a pickup headed our way lost a tire. That took the pickup careening off the road, throwing up a huge cloud of dust, and for a few seconds we had no idea whether a loose tire or, worse, another vehicle dodging the mishap would be meeting us. I’m here to write about it, but it was one of those life lessons that reminded us how fragile our grasp on life truly is.

Shortly before our stop for the night, we pulled over to see the site of a former wood mill just outside Lee Vining. It’s history had been captured in a beautiful kiosk that described the wood cutting, milling and shipping that took place at that site. With 4 saws and 25 men, a crew (when sober) could produce 80,000 board feet a day.

I was equally impressed with what a few local people proud of their heritage can accomplish to preserve it for the future. The woodwork and stone monuments showed great thought and high quality handwork had been put into the project.

Tomorrow we see one of the major sites we came for: Yosemite National Park, just a few miles from our campground.