Tripped the light fantastic along California's 395, road tripping into adventures great and small in many of the area's amazing side canyons, but because I typically visit the area in the winter or Spring, I'd never been to these canyons (not accessible due to snow-covered roads!). The Fall colored highlights centered around Bishop Creek Canyon, where I found the best color, but I also journeyed into McGee Creek Canyon, Rock Creek Lake Canyon, Lundy Lake Canyon, and Virginia Lake Canyon, all for the first time. I also sampled some of the non-fall-color-oriented area icons, such as the Alabama Hills, Death Valley and Mono Lake. My journey even took me on an ill-timed adventure into Yosemite National Park, in every sense of the word. If I'd have been there for sunset that night, I'd have been treated to clouds swirling around El Capitan and Half Dome and fog covering the valley floor. This I saw by the light of the stars as I drove 5 hours from 395 up to Glacier Point. I woke in the morning with my vehicle's inside windows covered in thick ice, not a cloud to be seen anywhere (which is why I have no pictures of Glacier Point in my gallery!), only to discover on my way back down from 9000 feet to the 4200 foot Valley that my brakes were grinding and I needed a brake-job...still five hours of windy driving down to the Valley, up to over ten thousand feet, down to sixty five hundred feet, then up and down a mountain pass and into Mammoth Lakes for new brakes. Fortunately, however, no parts were needed, just pads and I was back on the road with only a few hours lost to repair time. Not too bad, considering what MIGHT have been from a brake damage perspective.

Twenty two hundred miles in seven days, and another adventure is in the history books. Life is good:--)