Manzanar NHP 2019

It was around my birthday and the skiing bug had really hit me hard. A fresh snow was predicted for the Sierras, and the weather forecast was looking good...clear on Thursday, 2-4 inches on Friday, chance Saturday, so I said "let's go" and decided to head into Mammoth for a long weekend. Well, that 2-4 inches turned into nearly 2 feet! After an excellent evening stranded in a lakeside lodge with great food, a really good jazz pianist, a bar (of course), and new friends, the next morning was over an hour of digging out the car and then waiting for avalanche control to open the road. While I would have loved to ski, the next storm was coming and predicted to be worse, so it was unfortunately the only window of time to get down off the mountain in the Camaro (probably not the best ski car...).

But along the drive back down, slowed by the chains, I got to see some gorgeous views of the newly snow covered Eastern Sierras. I love those mountains, so dramatic, rising up from the flat valley into their rugged peaks, and in the snow are just magnificient.

Now with time on my hands, finally I was able to stop at Manzanar. I had passed by many times but had never stopped in. It is a place all of us should visit. Knowing what happened there just from reading in books was one thing, but the exhibits and surroundings finally make it real, and sad that we treated Americans so badly. The personal stories, learning of the loyalty tests, but perhaps the story that hit the most was one of a woman that said they voluntarily went to the internment camps because they felt it was their duty as an American. Walking around, seeing the ruins and exhibits just amongst the desert and the mountains that I have come to love so much made me even sadder; that a place of such natural beauty could be bespoiled by the ugliness of human nature. I have not visited many historical parks before, but perhaps I should do so more. It is good for us to preserve the things we are not proud of to remind us to all be better in the future.

The Photographs

Picutres were from an iPhone SE.

Click "Next" in the upper right to begin.