In any case, it's well worth the stop if you're ever on 395 north of Lone Pine. Visiting there made us wonder how close we are to forgetting lessons like this -- dreadfully close, I fear.
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After two years of immersion in hiking and climbing, Tina finds herself coming back to long distance cycling with fresh senses and new observations. For instance, while we'd covered the stretch of road between Ridgecrest and Lone Pine many times in the rental car, Tina found herself seeing quite a lot that she hadn't noticed before --- entire lakes, water crossings, those little white crosses by the side of the road, historical markers (which we'd actually stop at), the smells - good and bad, and just generally being more aware of what's going on. Of course, one also is keenly aware of where the road rises and falls, where the shoulder is rough and where it's smooth, where the breeze blows and where you're baked in the sun, etc .. ;-)
Yesterday there was a new one even for me. We were spinning along when suddenly there were honey bees everywhere around us. It looked like there was a swarm trying to move from our left to our right but a good many bees got caught up with us for a bit. The interesting thing was that the bees brought with them a powerful smell of pollen. That makes total sense but it's just not something I had thought about before -- that swarms of bees smell!
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We're going to take a day here in Independence to let Tina recover a bit from some, um, "localized pain" and bruising as she gets her cycling legs back. We'll update again in 2-3 days.
All the best! Hiker & Biker