California is not somewhere I’d really associated with stunning scenery, but that just goes to show how little I knew about it. There were a few stops along the way to and from Lake Tahoe, just because we drove past something that was crying out to be photographed.
I’m drawn to tumbledown (or on the verge of) shacks for photographic subjects. A touch of remaining snow on the mountains in the background of the image above definitely added something. As for the image below – my camera was level as you can tell from the trees!
Below is Lake Tahoe and another roadside stop. We were just at the bottom tip for a couple of days.
The light on the mountains was really flat when we arrived in the afternoon, so we got up at silly o’clock the next morning to photograph the golden hour lighting them up. It was actually a really nice and peaceful hour with hardly anyone around.
Back into town we drove up a road to explore and had another good view of the mountains. I purposely didn’t bring up the shadows in the image as I liked the way the eye is drawn into the distance.
By the time we drove back down the very quiet road it had become much lighter, and we just had to make a stop to photograph these wild flowers amongst the trees.
The sheer number of trees reminded me of Vancouver, which is a beautiful place to visit.
It’s often worth going off the beaten path and just following a track. We found an absolutely beautiful meadow.
A few hours drive south is Mono Lake; an alien landscape which is believed to have formed at least 760,000 years ago. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which makes its water alkaline, resulting in columns of limestone rising above the surface. I had expected hoards of people to be there, but there was hardly anyone else around.
Just a short drive west of Mono Lake is one of the entrances to Yosemite National Park. This entrance is closed in Winter and Spring due to its high altitude. Snow closes the road and it had only just opened in June. I’m glad it was open, otherwise we wouldn’t have got to see Mono Lake.
Next stop – Yosemite………
