Road Trip! Over the Mountains to Lone Pine CA

Hubby and I took a quick trip to his Dad's for his 85th birthday.  We both looked forward to a road trip, one of our favorite things to do.

We love to drive up to the mountains and on this trip, we enjoyed passing all of our favorite places.  

This is Caples Lake.  I had to take a pic because it wasn't that long ago that they had the lake drained and we actually walked on the bottom of it.  

I had to share this picture of "Red Lake".  Why is it called that I wonder?  It's not red, that's for sure, but it is very green.

It's a long drive.  We decided to change things up and go a different route.  We usually go over Carson Pass.  

We chose this time to go over Monitor Pass.  It's not that much different.

This route goes through Markleeville.  It's a really small town. I wouldn't want to be there in the winter, I imagine they are pretty cut off during the snow.

It was pretty enough, but not spectacular.  We couldn't really tell if it saved time or not.  

Once you get over the mountains, it just seems like the road goes on forever.

It was a very long drive.  Here is a picture of the family:

This is actually their front yard.  Can you imagine this view all day every day?  Wow.

The sunset was spectacular.   I took this picture with my Iphone.  It was so beautiful.

Hubby took this one with his camera:

It was one of those things that was over way too quickly.  

We visited and then spent the night in town.  One thing that we both loved was all the old fashioned motel signs.  

How many suitcases should one bring for an overnight?  If I was flying, I would economize.  But, driving is just encouraging me to bring more.  I have a motto, "if you think you might want it, bring it!".  And, that's what I did.  These are all just for ME!.  Hubby had his own bags. My red suitcase for clothes, my other red bag has makeup and toiletries, the bags in the middle have shakes for breakfast (I even brought my blender...but forgot the most important piece....boo hoo), the fluffy bags had pillows and beach towels (just in case) and the black bag in front had my lap top.  I always bring a outlet strip for all of our plugs and my own alarm clock.  I never claimed to be someone who travels light.

The next morning we had breakfast with the family and enjoyed all the beautiful scenery.  This was taken on the road to hubby's Dad's house:

Hubby took some stunning photos of the area: (at 5 am !!! I stayed in bed)

On the way home, we went to Bodie, a famous old west ghost town.  I will save that for a separate post. It was so interesting.

We stopped in Bridgeport and could not find a mocha anywhere!!  So we had ice cream instead.  That's a fair trade.

After Bodie, we took an entirely different pass over the mountains.  Sonora pass:

This was a truly beautiful drive and it actually seemed a little shorter to go this way.  We would take this pass again the next time.  We loved the scenery.  I took this short video of one of the incredible views:

This trip was a photographer's dream.  Hubby it just itching to go back and really take some time to just take pictures to his hearts content.