Day 7

Today we drove east through Yosemite on the Tioga road, up to Tioga pass, elevation of about 9000 feet (The highest automobile pass in the US) and to the (tiny) town of Lee Vining, which is right on the banks of Mono lake. On the way we passed two beautiful lakes: Tuolumne Lake and Tioga Lake. As you can see from the pictures the view is breathtaking.

We got to Mono Lake around noon. The lake is very beautiful. It's salty, kind of like our Dead Sea. It is home to many birds, but the most common life form there seems to be flies. When you go down to the shores of the lake you can see from afar a brown band of color on the water front, and only when you get close you find out that you are actually looking at millions and millions of flies (Fortunately they are not at all attracted to humans). The birds there have a good life. They literally run along the shore with their beaks open and swallow as many flies as they can (We called it "the fly buffet"). It's a very funny spectacle. We watched a movie about the history of the lake and an Indian woman that used to live there as a child was reminiscing about how they used to collect the fly larvae, dry them up and eat them. She said she feels very sad about the younger generations not doing that anymore. We blame McDonalds.

The lake has strange chalky formations in it, called "Tufa", and also two islands, a black one which was formed by an erupting volcano, and a light one which is a big Tufa island (If I remember the movie correctly). At sunset the lake turns pink and blue and very pretty.

The town of Lee Vining is tiny. Elad says he read somewhere that there are 6000 people living in it but it looks more like 60. There are about three streets here and you can walk it from end to end in five minutes. It is based on tourism, thanks to the lake and to it being the eastern gate to Yosemite.

We are going to attempt to get up tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise and take some more beautiful pictures of the Lake. Until then have a good night.

P.S. We are eagerly awaiting your comments. You can post them directly into the blog.