Mammoth, California

After a trip in to Wal-Mart for the bathroom, breakfast in the van was granola and a green smoothie.

And then we hit the road for the 3 hour drive down to Mammoth, California.  Can't believe after all my time in Tahoe, I never made it to Mammoth!

The drive started out nice enough, but that quickly turned to rain and snow.

 

I was a little bummed it was too cloudy to see all the beautiful mountains down there, but the lakes were a nice substitute. 

Firs things first in Mammoth.  Time to get my  new purple skis mounted so I can use them!  

After a quick stop at Dale's house in Mammoth, we got back on the road to check out some local hot springs.  

The first springs we stopped at had far too many cars at the trail head.  The little hot springs pools aren't near as fun when you're squished in to some naked person you've never met before.

So we passed on those and went to plan B a little further down a different dirt road.

The skies were starting to clear up and the sun was beautiful as it was slowly slipping behind the mountains.  Oh, and these hot springs weren't packed at all.  In fact, I got one little spot all to myself!

Once we'd had enough of the hot springs and sufficiently smelled like sulfur, we jumped out, dried off, and ran back to the van for dinner before we froze to death outside.  (Slightly dramatic, maybe, but it is SO cold out in the wind when you're nice and warm from the hot springs!)

 

After dinner, we drove up to a trail head outside of Lone Pine -- the start of tomorrow adventures!