Tales of a Traveling Wiseguy

We've had our car, "Ocean", a BMW 230i convertible, for 5 years now. It's a 2018 model that we bought gently used in 2021 from a dealer in San Diego— and memorably drove nearly 500 miles home.

Here's a pic from when we picked it up:



We bought the car, a 2018 model, with 24,xxx miles on the odometer in 2021. A year ago it was at 57,xxx. Today it's just reaching 62,800. It's not surprising to me that we've only added about 5,500 miles in the past year, less than half the US average of 13.5k per year¹. Retirement!

How do we like driving an 8 year old car? To us it doesn't feel 8 years old. It barely even feels 5, the amount of time we've owned it. Approaching 63k miles it's still in great shape— modulo that confidence-shaking $4k repair bill this past January. It drives well and handles well, and a convertible is awesome in this part of California. Mild winters and mild summers mean we can drop the top to enjoy al fresco driving much of the year.

What about modern tech? Enh. The one thing we'd like would be wireless Apple CarPlay. That'd make it easier to use mapping tools and play our tunes. But having driven a variety of newer-tech cars as rentals over the past few years I'm really leery of all the undesirable new tech that's becoming increasingly non-optional with newer cars. The good news is that as gently as we're adding miles to this car, maybe we won't have to think seriously about how to replace it for at least 10 more years!

---

1. It's easy to find via web search that the average miles driven per year in the US is "12-15k". But what's the source for this? A tiny bit more searching turns up the US Department of Transportation's Average Annual Miles per Driver by Age Group. There you find the overall average of 13,476, often rounded to 13,500 like I did here. It's interesting to see in this primary source the differences by age group and gender!

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #11
John Muir Wilderness · Tue, 7 Jul 2026. 11:30am.

The air up here at 2 miles high (over 3km) is thin. It's a good thing the Little Lakes Valley trail goes by so many lakes. Each one is an opportunity to stop and rest and enjoy the beauty.



There are so many lakes up here. The trail goes by half a dozen of them. There are even more if you dart a bit off the main trail. This photo (above) is from the foot of Marsh Lake. You'll barely see it if you stay on the main trail. But a level spur trail about 100 meters across the valley takes you to these amazing views.

Back on the main trail there's another short climb and then a descent to Heart Lake.



Heart Lake is fed by multiple streams, not just Rock Creek coming from the west but also a few dropping down from Mount Starr and Ruby Lake to the north. (Mount Starr is behind the camera in the photo above, so don't ask which one it is. 😅)



This stream feeding into Heart Lake (above) is the outflow from Ruby Lake 700' of elevation above us. We hiked to Ruby Lake on our previous trip here, in 2022. Why not go back? We considered it. We could have turned right instead of left at the fork earlier on the trail. It's too much to do that hike and this hike in one day, though, and we haven't hiked this route since 2018.

Also, this branch of the trail is easier. 😅

Speaking of taking it easy....



By the time we got to Box Lake we needed a longer rest. Pull up a rock and make yourself comfortable. You can see Hawk here drinking it all in, with views across Box Lake and Mount Morgan (elev. 13,567') beyond.

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #10
Above Mosquito Flat · Tue, 7 Jul 2026. 10:15am.

Our big hike for today is a trek into the Little Lakes Valley in the John Muir Wilderness. The trail starts from the inauspiciously named Mosquito Flat. But seriously, Mosquito Flat is a great place to start a hike. That's because it's at elev. 10,230' (3,118 m) — and your car gets to do all the climbing up to there!



It's a winding 9 mile drive up from Tom's Place along US-395. The  road is barely paved the last mile or two. The parking lot fills quickly, even on a midweek day like today. But once you slather on suntan lotion and bug spray, heft your pack, and start walking it's beautiful views right away. And did I mention, you're already almost 2 miles high?



Not far up the trail you enter the John Muir Wilderness. US Forest wilderness areas are a special designation with higher protections and stricter rules for use. For me, these boundary signs are like, "NOW ENTERING: HAPPY PLACE".

These happy places do come with toil, though. From the wilderness boundary it's up, up, up.



Fortunately the views are amazing. That gives plenty of reason to stop at catch my breath— I mean, admire the scenery and take pictures! Below is Rock Creek flowing through a wet meadow while wildflowers line the path.

We've hiked this trail a few times before. The wildflowers are a nice difference this time. I was wondering if we'd hit snow covering the trail in places. With the burst of heat we had in the spring the snow melted early, though since then the temperatures have been mild so wildflowers are still thriving up here. It's like getting the best of both seasons.



At half a mile in the trail forks. Which way to go? The answer is YES!

We've hiked both trails before. To the right, the trail climbs steeply to Ruby Lake and continues on to the Mono Divide. To the left, the trail continues deeper into the Little Lakes Valley Mack Lake, Marsh Lake, Heart Lake, Box Lake, Long Lake, and others. We hiked to Long Lake several years ago. That's where we're going again today... and farther, if we can make it.



The payoff for choosing the Little Lakes Valley trail comes almost immediately. I mean, the ascent up from Mosquito Flat was scenic, but just after that fork I showed the trail crests a rise, and the view across the valley really opens up ahead of you. In the distance are a bunch of 13ers (mountain peaks above 13,000' high): Mount Morgan, Rose Finch Peak, Bear Creek Spire, Mount Dade, Mount Abbot, and Mount Mills. (Okay, one of those is only 12,743'. I'll let you figure out which. 😅)

To be continued....

I've been on The Pill for 3 months now. "The Pill", of course, is Ozempic (technically, Rybelsus), a GLP-1 drug. I'm taking it for reducing blood sugar and losing weight.

How's it going? Well, after I experienced noticeable improvements the first two months things flattened out a bit in Month 3. I've lost more weight, though at a slower pace this month than in the first two. I lost 3 pounds this month, bringing my total to 21.

Losing just 3 pounds is frustrating because it's such a slowdown from the first two months. Yes, I know, 3 pounds in a month is a run rate of 36 pounds a year, which would be a great sustained rate for weight loss. But whether 3 pounds/month sustains is the question. With my monthly weight losses of 10 pounds, then 8 pounds, then 3 pounds... well, you can see the declining trend there. I'm concerned that in another month or two I'll bottom out at around 25-30 pounds down from where I started and not lose any more beyond that.

My blood sugar levels, as measured by daily glucose tests, are actually up over the past two weeks, which is concerning. They should be continuing down, or at least staying level with where they were last month. I'll get a better handle on this when I have my next blood test, probably in about a month. The A1C level measured in a blood test is more indicative than the daily glucose checks I can do at home.

On the positive side I continue having only mild side effects. Symptoms like diarrhea and nausea are in check. My eat two-thirds practice I started early in the course has continued serving me well. I even tested that a few nights ago with dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse.

All the above could change in another month. I'm currently taking the medium dose of the pill. My doctor advised that she'll likely advance me to the high dose next, possibly as soon as my followup in another month. The high dose is double what I'm taking currently. It could juice my reductions in blood sugar and weight... and/or juice those unwanted side effects. 🤢

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #9
At the Westin · Mon, 6 Jul 2026. 9pm.

We decided to call it a day after hiking Twin Falls today. We had another hike on our list that we'd hoped to do today but we just didn't have the energy for it. The 9,000' altitude at Twin Falls had hit me hard. So we went back to the hotel— which is at merely 8,100' elevation 😅— and relaxed.

We trudged up to our room, stripped off our sweaty hiking gear, changed into swimsuits, and headed back downstairs to the pool deck.



The water in the swimming pool was a bit too cool for us, especially with a not-warm wind whipping past us every time we stood up. So we soaked in the hot tub and tried to stay mostly submerged.

After a good long soak— I believe we were out there for almost an hour— we headed back up to the room. I peeled off my swim trunks and went straight for a shower as I felt slimy still from the sweat and dust and bug spray and suntan lotion. Plus I wanted to look nice as we'd decided to treat ourselves to dinner this evening at a fancy restaurant: a Brazilian steakhouse!

We hadn't eaten at a churrascaria in, oh, at least a few years at this point. Hawk's been on a medication that makes that type of food not fit her appetite... and now I am, too. Being on Ozempic the past few months I've wondered, with my reduced appetite would I get the value of spending $100pp at an all-you-can-eat steakhouse? And would the food be so tempting that I'd be prone to overeat and get sick after?

We'd been waiting until the stars aligned: It had to be a day when Hawk was ready to enjoy red meat, and both of us had exercised to work up a fair appetite, and I had eaten a minimal lunch. Well, items 1 and 2 were ✅, and for lunch I'd only nibbled on a protein bar. So off to the Brazilian steakhouse for dinner we went! 😋

Back at the room, stuffed and happy, we relaxed on the sofa and enjoyed watching the sunset through our balcony doors.



It's about 9pm now (I snapped the sunset photo above at 8:18) and I feel like I'm fighting off sleep. Of course I did wake up at 5:30am today with morning light pouring through our windows. And since that's likely to happen again tomorrow, plus we're planning a full day of hiking, I should get to bed soon.

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #8
Twin Lakes · Mon, 6 Jul 2026. 12:15pm.

As Hawk and I were putting together a list of possible trails to hike on this visit to Mammoth Lakes, she suggested Twin Falls just outside of town and showed me a map. It's practically right next to the start of a trail we hiked on a previous visit. "I think we looked at that from the side of the road years ago and considered it 'done'," I said. But then she showed me a pic on AllTrails.com, and I realized we had definitely not seen Twin Falls before— and if we had, I wouldn't have pooh-poohed it!

To put this falls in perspective I'll start with the view we got to last.



This is Twin Falls as seen from across one of the Twin Lakes. It falls almost 300' down a steep ridge from Mamie Lake. There's a trail from the bottom that switch-backs up the mountainside but doesn't really get close to the falls.... Then, according to AllTrails.com at least, there's a trail from the top that drops like a shot right next to the falls. We opted to hike the latter.

What AllTrails.com marked wasn't an established trail but rather a "social route" as people call it nowadays. Use trail was the term we hikers used years ago. Either way, it's a path that's beaten down from people walking on it, it's very dicey in spots, and it's not maintained. The trail notes promised us view of Upper and Lower Twin Falls, which are near the top and about halfway down the long cascade you see in the pic above.


Link: Watch video on YouTube

Here's a video showing Upper Twin Falls in action. Much of the time I post stills of waterfalls from my hikes. Here I chose to share the video because it captures the scope and activity of the falls better than a still image can convey.

As we headed to Lower Twin Falls next we faced a decision about how to get there. The route indicated on AllTrails.com did not exist. The trail going straight down from this point was... notional, at best, and looked treacherous. AllTrails also showed we should cross the stream here. Uh, no! 😨

We lateraled over to the switchback trail, the official trail in this area, and zigzagged more than halfway down the ridge. The problem with this trail, presumably the reason why the social trail exists, is that it veers away from the falls! We used our orienteering skills to pick a route back over to the stream not far below where it looked like the Lower Falls tier would be. After a bit of bushwhacking and scrambling over deadfall we found an old use trail that cleaved close to the stream and ascended to Lower Falls.


Link: Watch video on YouTube

In this video you can also see Twin Lakes below us when I pan away from the falls. And did you spot that little bridge spanning between the Twin Lakes? That's where I stood to capture the first pic in this blog.

When we were done enjoying the Lower Falls we continued hiking up the use trail to Upper Falls. There was a use trail between the two! It's just in such poor condition that it wasn't really visible from above. I mean, climbing up from below we were doing things like climbing almost vertical sections of hillside by grabbing onto exposed tree routes. Here's a pic Hawk took of me coming up the trail:



When we got back up to Upper Falls I felt like my butt had been thoroughly kicked. Well, actually it was my butt that was in agony, it was my lungs. The elevation up here is nearly 9,000', and having barely 24 hours to acclimate from sea level is not enough for a person of my age. So from here we lateraled back over to the switchback-y trail and zigzagged our way back up to the trailhead at the top.

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #7
Convict Lake · Mon, 6 Jul 2026. 12:15pm.

I mentioned earlier today that we're looking to do a bunch of shorter hikes ranging out from Mammoth Lakes today. Part of "a bunch" means that some things are misfires. We started with the columns at Crowley Lake, which was slightly a misfire because this time we couldn't get all the way up to the columns; they were in wading-depth water that was disgusting with algae. After that we drove a 4x4 road through part of the Owens Gorge. I didn't take pictures there, though I should have. Then I went exploring a few side canyons off US-395 on the eastern Sierra Nevada. No dice on that. Not everything that looks like a massive canyon has a road into it.

Of course, some massive canyons do have roads into them. One we're saving for tomorrow because we'll do a big hike there; another we visited today because it's a pleasant short stroll. That's Convict Lake.



On the access road to Convict Lake you can tell you're in for something special. Those 12,000'+ peaks that line the side of US-395... well, there's an obvious gap in them. And a brown sign for Convict Lake.

The road goes up right to the edge of the lake. There are several small parking lots there and a few hiking trails, including one that's an easy stroll along the side of the lake and provides access to gravel beaches popular with picnickers and fishers.



We didn't bring rod and reel or even a picnic basket, just ourselves and our cameras. It's always so dramatic gazing at this colorful rock wall rising 3,000' above the lake. Wouldn't it be special to hike up the way up there? ....Yeah, special and painful. 😅

We visit Convict Lake almost every time we're traveling along this section of US-395. It's a scenic gem on a road that's packed with so many scenic gems. And this one's easy to visit. Well, easy in the not-winter, anyway. Our first visit here was in early December twenty-something years ago. The road was snowed under past the foot of the lake. We clambered over 8' tall snow drifts just to see a view similar to this... and felt the chill of sub-zero wind blowing straight through all our layers of clothes. It's way nicer now in July. ⛄️

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #6
Crowley Lake · Mon, 6 Jul 2026. 10:30am.

Today's our first full day in Mammoth Lakes. We got up early— or at least I did. I woke up at 5:30 when dawn light started streaming through the east-facing picture windows in our 7th floor suite at the Westin. I kind of knew that was going to happen. I mean, I'm an observant person, I can put 2 and 2 together (I can also compute the inverse of a 3x3 matrix in my head... or at least I used to be able to 😅), and the sun has been rising in the east my whole life so far. I just hoped I might be able to sleep past 5:30am.

We're aiming to hike a number of shorter treks today. Our first outing is to Crowley Lake, about 30 minutes south of Mammoth Lakes. In one specific cove on this lake there are amazing nature-made stone columns. They look like something from Greek antiquity!


Link: Watch video on YouTube

Crazy story about how we found this place.... Four years ago we were at the Sunnyvale Art & Wine Festival, similar to the one we attended a month ago. Except a few years ago these shows were better. They were better because they had more talented artists (as in, more artists who were talented, as to a dozen artists hawking the same 3 derivative things). Also, the artists worked their own booths, so when we saw something that caught our eye we could talk directly to the creator to learn more about it.  Anyway, we were in a photography booth with huge prints of various scenes from the Sierra Nevada. As we're familiar with so many of the parks Hawk and I were playing "Name that scene" with the pictures. We saw amazing photos of this natural colonnade. We were stumped. The photographer told us, "Those are the columns at Crowley Lake." Well, in less than a minute we'd located Crowley Lake on a map... and a few weeks later, on our next 3-day weekend trip, we visited Crowley Lake.

Now that we're visiting Mammoth Lakes again, we just had to go back to Crowley Lake. Yes, the columns are that awesome!

The trek starts, for us, with a bit of 4x4 driving. People with "cute 'ute" SUVs might be able to get to the bottom of the first hill, but getting up the other side requires better hardware. A lot of people walk it— and it can be an unforgiving walk in the summer, with a dusty trail and zero shade. We drove until the last half mile or so, where a footpath leads down the side of a bluff to a sandy cove on the lake shore.

This visit was different from our first one. Oh, the columns are the same... but the lake level was higher. Four years ago we could walk right up to the columns. This year the water level was maybe 3 feet higher, enough to cover the bottom of most of the columns. And the water was disgusting with algae and other goop, so we weren't inclined to get our feet and legs wet. Probably visiting later in the season is the right way to enjoy the columns at Crowley Lake to the fullest.

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #5
Mammoth Lakes · Sun, 5 Jul 2026. 10pm.

Although June was my month of #PoolLife, the month I decided "I'm going to use the pool and/or hot tub every day" (minus the one day I missed), I've kept the streak going in July. Today we left home, though, for our Mammoth Lakes road trip at 9:30am. Did we squeeze in a soak in the hot tub early in the morning? No.. because we figured we'd get one at our hotel this evening!



After walking down to "the village" for dinner we came back up ("up" being an operative word 🥵) to the hotel and went for a soak in the hot tub. The high altitude sun was already set, so we didn't have to worry about sunburn and stayed out for almost an hour.

Oh, we had a little excitement from the balcony of our room before we went to the pool. From the street far below I heard the sirens of a police car making occasional short blasts. At first I figured, "NBD, police activity in a tourist town is not unusual. Probably someone trying to park in the bus stop." But when the siren blasted again and again I went outside for a look-see. A few people had stopped and were holding their phones up to record video. "Are the cops rousting a vagrant?" I wondered. Then I saw the action....



The vagrant was a black bear! I was climbing along the retaining wall of an apartment building below us. A few residents were on the balcony the bear was trying to scale. (Not really a bright idea.) By the time I started my own video recording the bear had given up on joining the folks on the balcony and was instead padding along through the yard between that building and our hotel.

Mammoth Lakes Travelog #4
Mammoth Lakes · Sun, 5 Jul 2026. 5pm.

As we neared the end of our road trip today things started looking up. And by "things" I mean the weather. All afternoon we'd had gray, depressing skies over the Sierra Nevada that even cast a pall over normally stunning Yosemite. Even the scenically overwhelming Tioga Pass was somewhere between overwhelming and "Meh" today. So imagine my surprise as we turned south on US-395 and looked forward (literally) to Mammoth Lakes....



Yes, Mammoth Lakes is, like, the one sunny spot in the Sierra Nevada today!

We drove into the town of Mammoth Lakes and to our hotel, the Alpenhof Lodge.



The Alpenhof is the hotel we switched to after we started planning the trip around the more-luxe but also spendier Westin Monache a few blocks away. We said no to the Westin because we reasoned that this hotel, despite being more like a Quality Inn from the 1970s, offered everything we wanted— for 40% less. Alas by the time we arrived we had learned that several of those things we wanted, which were promised on the website, were closed or broken.

The front desk agent acted sympathetic... but the only option he offered was, "I can cancel your whole reservation right now." I pointed out how that was an absurd alternative, as we'd planned a 4-day trip around this stay, we'd driven 6 hours from home, and at this last minute finding alternative lodging would likely be way more expensive than what we booked a week earlier. I asked instead for a discount on our rate as a few promised facilities were unavailable. He said only the manager could authorize that, and the manager wasn't there.

I took the keys and drove around the back to find our cottage. I was still fuming about the situation... and seeing the cottage looking like something not particularly fancy from decades ago just snapped it for me. With Hawk's agreement we drove back to the front, checked that the "take it or leave it" offer was still available, and left it.

We walked out. I've only walked out of a hotel maybe 4 times in over 1,000 nights of hotel stays. And ironically 2 of those times have now been in Mammoth Lakes.

Hawk quipped, "It's now our thing!"

So, where did we go? We found a decent rate over at the Westin Monache. Yes, the one we steered away from a week ago because we decided it was too spendy.



It's spendier, but all the stuff they promise actually works. And actually we found a rate that's less spendy than what we saw a week ago... though it's still a big step up, cost-wise, from what we booked at the Alpenhof Lodge.

Fortunately it's also a step up in terms of luxury.



Here's a photo from the living room in our one-bedroom suite. Our balcony overlooks the town and the mountains and valleys beyond from the 7th floor. And now we're about to walk down to the village to get some dinner. When we come back it'll be time to the use the hot tub— the two hot tubs this hotel has, both of which work! 🤣