Even the Bad Days Make Good Stories

It was the last day of a weeklong van trip through the Eastern Sierras. I (Alison) was behaving badly. The sun was scorching; I'd had my share of pit toilets and marina showers. I was tired of beans and rice, and we had long run out of the most delicious blueberries I had ever tasted. We were headed back from June Lake toward Las Vegas, where we would catch a plane home. We decided to push ourselves that day so we wouldn't have to drive the entire six hours back to return our van early Saturday morning. We decided to take a chance that there would be some first come, first serve sites available at Whitney Portal Campground, where we had been earlier in the week, a gorgeous campground surrounded by views of Mt. Whitney, the scent of ponderosa pines and the sound of a running creek running through the campground. So breathtaking. But of course, we arrived as the last remaining campsite was being reserved by a man using the tiny pencils to write the campsite number on his envelope before sliding it through the wooden box from the car ahead of us.

We were told we could pay for a walk-in site and sleep in the van in the parking lot for those sites. We sat in the lot, trying to make a decision. The lot smelled of aforementioned pit toilets, and plenty of bear activity was evidenced by multiple piles of smashed window glass on the pavement. It was so hot. I was ready to be done, and to say that I had a meltdown on the picnic table might be an understatement. I left it up to Larry to decide. All choices seemed terrible. The smell of shit and the threat of a bear which we had hoped to see but now seemed unnerving to me, or a trek back down the mountain where the high heat in the Alabama Hills in a remote site appeared to guarantee a terrible night's sleep. He chose the latter.

And this is where we ended up…

With this as our night sky…

And this as our sunrise…

Pretty epic. I’d say it ended up ok.