Girlfriends on US 395...

Since I was heading South the day Lori was leaving, she agreed to forego her return flight home and joined me on the 450 mile road trip to Temecula.

Since we had a long drive, each stop was very brief. Our first pause was very cool however... the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve. The modern history here is a sad one. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began diverting Mono Lake's tributary streams 350 miles south to meet the growing water demands of Los Angeles. Deprived of its freshwater sources, the volume of Mono Lake halved, while its salinity doubled. Unable to adapt to these changing conditions within such a short period of time, the ecosystem began to collapse. Since 1978, they have been Saving Mono Lake. What remains is truly amazing.

"In the middle distance there rests upon the desert plain

what appears to be a wide sheet of burnished metal,

so even and brilliant is its surface.
It is Lake Mono."
—Israel C. Russell, Quaternary History of the Mono Valley, 1889

Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve is one of the rare places in the world that contain such a unique group of geologic features. The tufa formations are notable for their unusual shapes and abundance. Extensively studied by scientists, they have aided our understanding of the climate history of this region. The extremely high salinity and alkalinity of Mono Lake has created a rare ecosystem, supporting a complex food chain of green algae, brine shrimp and alkali flies, and more than 80 species of migratory birds.

BUZZZZZZZZZ... If you listen closely, this is what you hear at the edge of Mono Lake on calm summer days as swarms of black alkali flies carpet the shoreline. Walk among them and they move away from you, not at all interested in humans. If you were algae in the lake, it would be a different story. Along the shoreline, at the surface, and even beneath the lake, you can watch alkali flies busily feeding on microscopic algae. Wild stuff!

Moving on... A stop to ogle the Upside Down House is always fun. A distinctive local landmark and nationally renowned tourist attraction. It was the creation of Nellie Bly O’Bryan (1893–1984), visionary, entrepreneur and long time resident of the Mono Basin.

Although its tenure as Mono County’s first “man-made” tourist attraction was brief (1956–1968), it made a lasting contribution to the promotion and development of the Eastern Sierra.