8/9/13 - Tuttle Creek BLM Campground, Lone Pine, CA

Happy 40^th Birthday, Allen! We left our camp this morning after spending five days here.  The road between where we are and where we want to go has a section called Sherwin Grade.  This is an 8 mile 6 percent downhill grade.  I was nervous about going on it but it was much easier than the pass coming out of Yosemite.  When we got to Bishop we stopped at a grocery store and K-Mart.  We needed a new manual can opener. Then we drove to Manzanar National Historic Site.  This is one of the camps where the US government interred the Japanese during WWII.  The relocation center was opened in 1942 and closed in 1945.  All of the original buildings here were dismantled or moved after the war and there is no trace of them left except for markers.  There are a couple of reconstructed barracks buildings.  We looked around the museum and watched a 22 minute movie.  As we were leaving, a Japanese man was asking the Ranger how he could find out about the section and barracks his mother was in.  He found out she was in section 31.  He also has some family in the cemetery here.

About 7 miles down the road was a BLM campground that Jim had found some information on.  It is just west of Lone Pine.  When you come out of Death Valley on the western side, this is one of the first towns you can visit.  We are camped at Tuttle Creak Campground and the Sierra Nevada mountain range and Mt. Whitney is directly behind the Casita.  This has got to be one of the prettiest campgrounds we have ever stayed at and it only costs us $2.50 per night.

We unhooked and drove into Lone Pine to the VFW post.  The road we took went through the Alabama Hills, a very picturesque setting that has been used in many western movies. The Lone Pine VFW post is in one of the original interment barracks that was sold from the Manzanar Japanese War Relocation Center.  After having a couple of Sierra Nevada beers, we went back to camp and I cooked supper.  We sat outside and watched the sunset.