Honeymoon Flat to Lee Vining

I drive, Numenius reads maps and chooses campsites. Our plan for Tuesday—our actual anniversary—was to go to Bodie, the best-preserved ghost town in the United States, and then on to Mono Lake. Bodie is famous for one other reason: it’s the best place in California to see greater sage grouse.

Sage grouse are large but are very good at hiding in the arid country—dominated by sage brush—in which they live. They are drawn to Bodie because it’s just above the water table and they’re able to graze early in the morning before the cars start arriving. The gate opens at eight; our plan is to be there for when the gate opens.

The road up the hill is thirteen miles, the last three miles of which are a dusty washboard. We get to the gate just before eight and behind two other cars. The car in front of us has Oregon plates; the driver gets out, wearing binoculars. Good. I get out and go and talk to him, hoping to coordinate the grouse search. The minivan in front contains speakers of French who know nothing about grouse, but are very interested when I tell them about it.

Just then one, then four, then seven sage grouse amble across the path just in front of us. They are mostly young, but the males already have the black belly-patch that is so characteristic. I call to Mr. Oregon and Numenius, and run back to see if any of the cars behind us have any birders inside (they don’t).

At 8:05 we go through the gates, having seen these incredible birds. From here, we can sightsee. It doesn’t get much better than this. We sketch, we see sage thrashers and mountain bluebirds all over the place. These are real treats for us lowlanders and this is already shaping up to be a splendid day.

At around ten it’s getting hot, so we go back to the car and make our way to the gate. Coming up the hill in the dust is a Rolls Royce open-top. Not just any Rolls Royce; a 1922 Silver Ghost. It’s so funny—a Silver Ghost in a ghost town—I wave. They wave back, grinning. A short way down the hill is another one! It must be a thing, we think, like a weekend get-together.

It’s only when we come to check in to our cottage in the town of Lee Vining after a hot and dusty day wandering around Mono Lake that we see thirteen of these things—pre-1927 Rolls Royces—parked outside. It’s not just a weekend thing at all: they’ve driven all the way from Maryland and are headed to Monterey. That’s over 4,000 miles. A bit later we find out how: they all get out there and take the cars apart, clean them, oil them, and put them back together again. Every single day.

We didn’t get in a Rolls Royce on our wedding day, nor would that have been our style. But being surrounded by them on our anniversary was sort of fun. We sat out on our little stoop and drank tea and watched them wrestle with spoked wheels.

We decided to go to dinner at the best restaurant in town, which is the Mobil Station on the road to Tioga Pass. Getting our minds around this was interesting till we found it was run by high-end hippies of the rock-climbing variety and featured a full trapeze set with participants in shorts and t-shirts. The food was, as advertised, excellent. And, yes, the Rolls crowd showed up, making a grand entrance complete with anemic horn and smiling faces.

A gallery of photos from our trip can be found here.