Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday my wife and I took the trailer over to Highway 395 and drove south to Mammoth Lakes. We had planned to stay at the Bureau of Land Management campground at Crawley Lake. With my senior ½ price discount it would be $2.50 a night. As we got close we could see smoke from a forest fire near the town of Independence that was blowing north and covering the area. We decided to stay in Mammoth Lakes at the New Shady Rest Campground. It’s a Forest Service campground so it was $11.00 a night with my discount. We had a good site and the solar panel fully charged the battery on Saturday. After setting up camp we drove down to Crawley Lake to see how bad the smoke was. We are glad we stayed in Mammoth Lakes. We did find some new campgrounds we want to stay at the next time we are in that area. One is McGee Creek and the other is at Convict Lake. On Friday we drove up to the Mammoth Mountain ski area. We got bus tickets, $7.00 each, so we could catch a ride to Devils Post Pile. Our dog Riley could ride on the bus but she was required to wear a muzzle. They sold them in the sports store next to where you get the bus ticket. After lunch we drove up to the Lake Basin area and there were about 6 Forest Service campgrounds we could have stayed at. On Saturday we drove back north to Topaz Lake, Nv. to stay at the Topaz Resort RV Park. They have a small casino so they only charge $25.00 per night for full hook ups. It was warmer than Mammoth Lakes. It got to 98F (36.6C) so we ran the air conditioner. There was a nice breeze and after the sun went behind the mountain it cooled off fast. We had discount coupons for the buffet at the casino but we did not want to leave Riley in the trailer, so we had a great dinner eating outside by the trailer.
When we are passing thru the town of walker we eat at Walker Burgers. A VW buss passed us we drove up Conway Summit 8,143 ft (2,482m)
The smoke south of Mammoth Lakes. Our site at "The New Shady Rest Campground

This is what happens if you forget to fill up at water spigot. We just got a new Colemen folding table, it works great
The view from the Minaret Vista, 9265 ft (2824m). The dog muzzle. One of the many lakes above the town of Mammoth
This is the Walker Fire, it was not burning we we drove by on Thursday
Our campsite at Topaz Resort RV Park. It was warmer there so we were glad to have AC. Quite a few people at the far end of the lake
Once the sun went behind the mountain it got windy so right after I took this picture I had to pull the awning down.
Sign of the times out west this year