Our third and final stop of the 13-day Alpine Coach Association (ACA) Eastern Sierra Tour was at Highlands RV Park in Bishop, California. Saturday morning we gathered together at the group area for breakfast goodies and discussed the day’s activity. We were going to drive up to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest – about 40 miles away.
Donna and I drove there in Midget-San. We headed south to Big Pine then turned east on CA168. This road climbs from about 4,000 feet above sea level to about 10,000 feet above sea level in a little over 20 miles. Our destination was the Shulman Grove Visitor Center. As we started climbing on CA168, we were following a group of Porsches. These guys were having fun, cruising at the speed limit or below on the straights, allowing gaps to open up between the cars, then gassing it through the tight twisty sections. We were able to keep up with them most of the time in the Midget – of course they could have run away from us at any time, but since they didn’t run at high speed on the straights we stayed with them.
After climbing steep grades, we were around 6,500 above sea level when Donna said she smelled coolant. I also could smell it and saw the coolant temperature gauge suddenly shoot into the hot zone. I quickly pulled off the road and shut the engine down. I opened the hood and found the coolant hose had come off the water pump again – this happened once before in Winchester Bay, Oregon.
I had checked the oil and coolant levels before we left that morning. Looking at the coolant reservoir now, I could see the level in the overflow reservoir hadn’t changed. Here’s the thing – the engine coolant is held in a closed system. When the coolant absorbs heat, it expands. Since it’s a closed system, the expansion of the coolant creates pressure. This is a good thing – up to a point. At 15 pounds per square inch of pressure, the boiling point of water is raised to about 250 degrees.
The cooling system in cars has a radiator cap that relieves pressure – anywhere from 11 pounds to 25 pounds per square inch, depending on the design. This pressure relief valve in the radiator cap directs excess coolant into the overflow reservoir. When the engine cools, the coolant contracts and another valve in the cap opens and coolant is drawn from the reservoir back into the engine.
Our engine was hot. Expanding coolant should have flowed through the pressure relief valve in the radiator cap and into the overflow reservoir. This didn’t happen. When it cooled down a bit, I removed the radiator cap and found it difficult to overcome the spring pressure on the relief valve. My theory is a defective cap didn’t relieve the pressure in the cooling system. Something had to give and it was the hose connection at the water pump.
A few of the ACA members on their way up to the Bristlecone Forest stopped and offered assistance. I reconnected the hose at the water pump and waited for about 25-30 minutes to allow the engine block to cool. Then I started adding water. By then we had told everyone that had stopped to carry on – we’d be fine. It turned out I didn’t have enough water. Luckily, a car with tourists – we think they may have been Germans with rudimentary English – stopped and gave us enough water to fill the radiator and a bottle of drinking water. It was about 90 degrees outside and we were in the direct sun. We made the rest of the climb without any issues – I didn’t push the car hard and kept an eye on the coolant temperature.
At the Shulman Grove Visitor Center, a park ranger gave us a presentation telling us about the bristlecone pines and the methodology for determining their age. We learned that the information scientists have gained from the ancient trees has been instrumental in confirming or debunking many scientific theories regarding ancient history, climate and world events. There are trees here over 4,800 years old – the oldest known and confirmed organism.
The soil in the area is not at all fertile – it mainly consists of dolomite. The thing about bristlecone pines is that the hardiest trees with the longest life span are the ones that grow in the poorest conditions. The ranger pointed out a tree that was growing in a small ravine where it received more water than the trees on the hillsides. It was also more protected from the wind. The tree looked very healthy. He told us it was only a couple hundred years old and its life expectancy was only about 400 years. Another tree was growing on the hillside. It was exposed to the wind and received little water as any rainfall would drain down the hill. About three and half feet of its root system was exposed from erosion. This tree was between 300 and 400 years old. It had two dead branches but he thought that tree would likely live for a few thousand years. There’s something about overcoming adversity!
There was a dead tree he pointed out to us. By taking a core sample they determined that the tree had been standing there dead for more than 250 years! In this high, dry climate, there aren’t many organisms to attack the living or dead trees.
The drive back down to Big Pine revealed just how steep the climb was. Many sections were 8% gradients or more. We stopped at a scenic overlook and could see all the way across the Owens Valley. We were in the White Mountains on the east side of the valley and the Eastern Sierra Nevada range is on the west side. We could also see the town of Bishop about a dozen miles away as the crow flies.
Back in town, I stopped at O’Reilly Auto Parts and bought a new radiator cap and a gallon of coolant – I had about half a gallon of coolant stored in the trailer. Sunday morning I drained the water from Midget-San’s cooling system, refilled it with a 50/50 mix of coolant and replaced the radiator cap. The rest of the day I stayed indoors and watched football and the Moto GP race from Misano, Italy. The temperature outside was in the upper 80s. We shared another potluck dinner with the ACA group.
Monday morning we had an early start. Our destination was about 70 miles south to the Museum of Western Film History and Alabama Hills in Lone Pine. Lone Pine has a 100-year history of film making starting with Fatty Arbuckle in 1919. The Alabama Hills on the west side of town have a unique rocky landscape with the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada range for a backdrop. This landscape has been featured in countless films – mostly, but not limited to, westerns. Elaborate sets were built here to make the film Gunga Din and the mountains in the background were supposed to be the Himalayas. A sci-fi movie called Tremors was filmed here. The opening scenes with Robert Downey Jr. in the first Iron Man movie was filmed here. Many commercials – mostly car ads – are filmed here. The location has the great landscape and it’s only about six hours away from Hollywood.
After taking a self-guided tour of the museum, we got in our cars – well, we didn’t get in Midget-San – we rode with Michael and Teresa Weitz in their Jeep – and went out to the rough roads of Alabama Hills. We had a tour guide that led us to stopping points where various movie scenes were shot. He had a stack of enlarged photographs – stills taken as the movies were being made. He pointed out the rock formations that were used in different scenes and told us how the sets were made. Look at the photos below and see if you recognize any of the landscapes.
On the way out of Alabama Hills on Tuttle Creek Road, we passed a house nestled in the rocky terrain that Hopalong Cassidy lived in for nearly 40 years.
We had lunch in a park in Lone Pine, then headed back north on US395. We made a stop about 10 miles out of town at Manzanar – a National Historic Site. Manzanar was an abandoned town that was converted into a “War Relocation Center.” This was essentially a concentration camp for Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.
Donna and I did a self-guided tour of the museum there. I looked at the roll listing the names of Japanese-Americans imprisoned there. I found two with the surname Ohata – my mother’s maiden name. I don’t know of any of her relatives that were in the USA before she came here from Japan in the 1950s – so they probably weren’t my ancestors.
We took the driving tour of the grounds. This gave us a sense of the scope the camp which contained over 11,000 Japanese-Americans in a number of barracks arranged in “blocks.” It was an emotional place for me and I had conflicted thoughts about what happened and comparing it to the terrorist threats we face today.
On the drive back to Bishop, the wind really picked up velocity. There’s a wildfire burning in the west valley and the wind wasn’t going to help contain it. We saw a warning saying that the power company had cut electricity in Mono County to prevent any wind damaged power lines from starting more fires. Mono County is just north of Bishop which is in Inyo County.
Midget-San made the 140-mile round trip without missing a beat and the cooling system worked perfectly. I’m confident that my diagnosis of a faulty pressure relief in the radiator cap was correct.
Back at Highlands RV Park, I was sitting outside and reading in the shade while Donna took a walk to shop at an antique store. The wind was gusting well over 30mph. I saw an awning ripped from a coach down the lane from us by the wind. I thought of the canopies Tom Polk had at the ACA group site and ran over there. I was just in time as the large canopies were being lifted and tossed about by the wind. Two other ACA members, Bud and Norm, came over and we managed to dismantle the canopies before they were damaged. I also retracted a neighbor’s awning that was left out while they were away.
The scheduled activity for Tuesday was a tour of the Laws Museum outside of Bishop. Donna and I toured this museum when we here in May and I wrote about it in this post. We skipped the 10:30am tour and rode our bicycles to the museum grounds about five and half miles away arriving at 11:30am. The organizers picked up sandwiches from Schat’s Bakery and brought them out for a picnic lunch on the grounds. We also had a short train ride on a Brill car built in the 1920s.
We had a catered dinner back at Highlands RV Park. We had the same local caterer for three dinners on the tour – one in Mammoth Lakes and two here – she did a superb job on the meals!
This morning marks the end of the ACA Eastern Sierra Tour. Most of the ACA members have pulled out of the park as I type this. We’ve extended our stay another night and we need to come up with a plan. We’ll have eight nights to fill before we’re scheduled to arrive back at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego.
With the warm temperatures, we’ll have to choose any boondocking locations carefully.
