Tuttle Creek Campground, Museum of Western Film History, and Manzanar National Historic Site - (Lone Pine, CA)

Yikes, it was cold overnight. It hovered around 32 degrees and our furnace ran quite a bit since we don't have an electrical hook-up here at Tuttle Creek BLM Campground.

But when the sun finally got above the White Mountains to our east, it warmed up to the 60s.

Since it was dark when we got set up last night, I took some photos of our campsite this morning.

This is out our window looking east.

 

 

And this is out the opposite window looking west at the Sierras.

 

 

We back up to Tuttle Creek, which is flowing pretty good over a tiny waterfall, and it provides us some wonderful white noise for sleeping even with the rig all closed up.

The creek runs down the middle of the campground and, for some reason, we're the only rig on our side making it wonderfully peaceful. It's just us and the jackrabbits and the wonderful views.

 

 

 

We really like it here.

 

After re-leveling just a tad this morning, we eventually headed into Lone Pine where we visited the Museum of Western Film History.

  

 

Scenes from over 400 movies have been filmed in the Alabama Hills and other areas here around Lone Pine. The unique rock scenery makes a wonderful backdrop and Lone Pine is a fairly easy place to get to from Hollywood.

It's a nice museum that asks for $5/person donation. We watched their short movie about the movie industry here, but the majority of the movies shot in the area were a bit before our time. We remember hearing many of the names of the stars (or the characters they played), but most of the movies weren't familiar to us.

With that said, they have quite an impressive collection, and it was still interesting, although I think my parents would have enjoyed it more.

Near our campground, there is a road called Movie Road that goes through the Alabama Hills, and there is a map of some of the locations where various movies were staged. AND, there is a lot of wonderful boondocking throughout the Alabama Hills. We'll probably check that out tomorrow.

By the way, the Alabama Hills were named after the confederate ship CSS Alabama by prospectors in the area that were sympathetic to the south in the Civil War. They named their claims after the ship, and the whole area eventually took on the name. Less than twenty miles away, prospectors sympathetic to the north named their claims after the USS Kearsarge which sunk the Alabama off the coast of France in 1864. They also named a town, a mountain, and a pass Kearsarge after the union vessel.

 

We then made a stop at the Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center. There wasn't much going on there, but we checked out the exhibits and picked up some additional area information. There is a guided walk in the Alabama Hills that we may do this weekend.

 

Next we drove north toward Independence and stopped at the Manzanar National Historic Site.

 

 

There is no fee for admission.

Manzanar became the site of a Japanese internment camp following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was one of ten camps where 110,000 Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were incarcerated for three and a half years. This camp was called the "Manzanar War Relocation Center", and held over 10,000 people at one point.

The federal government through an executive order of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, authorized this unconstitutional detainment due to fears of espionage and sabotage after Pearl Harbor. The theory was there wasn't enough time to separate those loyal to the U.S. from those that may have had nefarious intentions on U.S. soil.

Based on the short documentary, it seems that the Japanese people were told that this was for their own protection and they went without resistance. At the time, there was mass hysteria, so there is a hint of truth that they were protected from anti-Japanese reaction, but it was clearly intended to be incarceration due to fears of sympathy and loyalty to Japan based on their heritage alone.

Manzanar was the first of the camps, and it was the best preserved after the camps were closed, so it was designated to serve as a historic reminder of the detaining of U.S. citizens without a shred of evidence to support the fear for which they were detained.

In 1988, the The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was passed as an apology that included reparations. It included the following language.

".... these actions were carried out without adequate security reasons and without any acts of espionage or sabotage documented by the Commission, and were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

After we finished perusing the exhibits, we took the short auto tour stopping to view reconstructed tar-paper barracks, a latrine, and sites of other buildings and gardens built by the detainees. A cemetery in the back, outside the barbed-wire fences, includes this obelisk with the Japanese characters translating to "Soul Consoling Tower".

 

 

It was a little cloudy today, which seemed fitting for visiting this place. But we are glad we visited and learned more about that time twenty years before we were born, although we left in somber and conflicted moods.

 

By the time we left Manzanar, the sun had already sunk behing the Sierras, so we made our way back to our campsite.

Linda is anxious to try out our new unlimited data plan, but after she whipped up a wonderful pork chop dinner with a yam and pear topping, we spent some time inputting our expenses and making sure all our accounts are reconciled. Maybe we'll do some streaming tomorrow night.

Fortunately, it's not supposed to be as cold tonight, and tomorrow is supposed to be sunny again. I'm looking forward to getting out and about and doing something a bit more nature-based. Until next time.

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Comments

[JC Webber III]

Back in Feb '18 we changed our Verizon plan to participate in some sort of FMCA deal. I forget the details now, but it included a newer version of the JetPack for $1.

Apparently that $1 was not the full price. Just the other day I converted our post-pay plan to the pre-pay plan in order to get the unlimited data. Today I received a bill from Verizon for $133 to cover the balance of the value of the upgraded JetPack. Apparently we had been put on a two year contract with that FMCA deal (something I was not aware of) so now they want the balance of the value of the JetPack because we 'cancelled' our contract to go pre-paid.

I called about it and am currently disputing that charge because we didn't stop being customers, we just changed how we pay. I'll let you know how that goes...

-- jcw3rd

[Steve and Dianne Colibaba]

That’s one of our favourite spots...so beautiful! Enjoy and safe travels.

[Howard]

JC, Yes, that was the "hook" for the FMCA plan - two year FMCA membership AND two year Verizon contract. It's a good plan, but having to lock into both for two years was a step we just couldn't take. I thought it was pretty clear on those commitments. Good luck in getting your refund.

[Clarke Hockwald]

Tuttle Creek is one of our favorite places along the Eastern Sierra. Just north of Manzanar is the little town of Independence. There is a wonderful museum there called Museum of the Eastern Sierra. Well worth the visit! Kearsarge Pass can be accessed just outside of Independence from the Onion Valley trailhead.

You are also traveling one of our favorite highways in America.....U.S. 395....some of the most amazing scenery, and a some great boondocking sites.