History & Landmarks Along California’s Highway 14 and Hwy 395
One of my favorite annual road trips was, for many years, the drive from Los Angeles to Mammoth Mountain on President’s Day Weekend.
It wasn’t so much the journey that was such a joy – it took six hours and was always at night in the dark – but the destination. We had several people, enough to fill up four or five condos, and skied and partied for three days. It was a blast.
The first thing we all did was to try and find someone else to drive. Ideally it was someone with an SUV or a truck, and since I never have owned either, I always managed to get out of driving. After a few years, I got a roommate who had a huge, old Chevy truck – big enough to where the back seating area had a different area code, I used to joke – and he did not mind driving, so I no longer had to scramble to satisfy my transportation needs.
The route was simple: Up the 405 freeway out of Los Angeles to Highway 14 through the high desert towns of Lancaster and Palmdale. To some, this was just an In-and-Out burger stop, but it has a huge aviation history as home of Edwards Air Force Base which has launched more secret and experimental than any other place in the USA and is also home of Willow Springs Raceway, where many car commercials are filmed and I have spent a lot of time in my motorsports PR career.
Then it was onto the two-lane Highway 395. This goes through several tiny towns – my favorite name of them is Lone Pine – where if you’re going more than 30 mph you ARE going to get a ticket. And while it’s a long, lonely part of the American road, it is also fascinating at the same time, for on your left is the highest point in the continental United States (Mt. Whitney) and to the right is the lowest (Death Valley).
This area is also where most of western films were shot in the 50s, 60s and 70s (yes, John Wayne was here!)
Somewhere near Lone Pine is one of the WWII internment camps for Japanese Americans.
Eventually we would roll into Bishop, which was kind of exciting (not that Bishop is exciting) because it was about the only bathroom break along the way and it meant we were just an hour from Mammoth.
On the way back we did stop in Bishop for something other than to pee. We would always go to Schott’s Bakery. Home of the original Sheepherder Bread, we went there instead for its turkey sandwiches, so good they actually carve a turkey like on Thanksgiving. Delicious!
Eventually I got wise and in addition to the sandwich I would get the entire turkey dinner and eat it when I got back to L.A. About an hour down the road fromSchott’s, the delicious smell would fill up the vehicle and I had to fight off people who literally wanted to tear into my dinner. It did not take long for them, too, to get a turkey dinner of their own to eat later.
President’s Day Weekend in Mammoth was always awesome, a big party with tons of fun friends. But, alas, pretty much everyone has scattered and we have not been there in at least four years.
One day, tho, I would like to make that drive up 395 at a more leisurely pace. Spend more than a few seconds looking at the internment camp, visit Death Valley and even get up close to Mt. Whitney (but not climb it; that can be brutal and you need to have knowledge about it to even think about attempting it).
Even eat at an old diner or cafe along that dusty trail.
If I do, I’ll be sure to post about it.
Cheers!
Oh my trips to New Orleans and Mardi Gras! Plenty of room for memories, tho. The drive to Mammoth is long when you’re in a hurry to get there but it sure has some interesting places along the way – if you’re willing to slow down and appreciate them. Thanks for your comment!
There are many times I wish we had bigger cars, especially on our trips to New Orleans and Mardi Gras. We bring back SO MUCH MORE stuff that we’ve almost had to sit on it to get it home. Haven’t been to L.A. but this sounds like a fun trip to make.
Thanks Lisa. Sure was PubClub’s type of road trip too!
This sounds like my kind of road trip! How fun!