From the Alabama Hills towards Las Vegas

The evening before, we arrived at Alabama Hills, because we read it should be a nice boondocking site. But it’s not only good for boondocking – it’s an amazing landscape with plenty of cool rock formations and a stunning view of the Sierra Nevada mountains. No wonder lots of movie scenes were shot there, especially from westerns, but also from Iron Man or Gladiator. In the evening, we had fun climbing up the Shark Fin, which lives up to its name regarding how it looks like. We found a good spot to spend the night and after sunset, a coyote howled to welcome us in the desert. The dark night sky with the clearly visible milky way was so impressive that we spent some time just sitting there, gazing at all the stars. The next morning, we woke up early to watch the wonderful sunrise over the Sierra Nevada mountains. We explored the Alabama Hills a bit more and did a short hike to Mobius Arch. Later, we actually just wanted to have a brief look at some climbing routes at The Loaf, but then we started to scramble up some boulders beneath it. We had so much fun going on and on, we eventually found ourselves on top of The Loaf. In the end, we did a whole loop scrambling all the way around this rock. So fun! After that, we could admire the scenery again while driving all along the Movie Road. We turned up the western music on the radio, which made us feel a bit of the adventurous cowboy-spirit.

Next, we stopped at a way less fun place, the Manzanar War Relocation Centre. After the attack on Pearl Harbour, the Americans imprisoned lots of Japanese people there. The visitor centre hosts a really good exhibition, which make you sad to see what people did and do to each other just because of an ancestry or some stupid stereotypes.

Afterwards, we drove lots of kilometres further towards the Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas. We had to do a long detour to the north, because the road through Death Valley was closed, leading through a seemingly endless desert. But regarding Death Valley, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings (all good things come in threes)! We also came across the Rhyolite ghost town, an abandoned miner’s town, looking a bit spooky indeed.