On Saturday we continued south on U.S. 395 to the southern edge of the Modoc Plateau at Susanville. Again, all the rocks and mountains are volcanic. Some of the basalt is flood basalt that erupted around 16 million years ago, as well as rhyolite. Most of the volcanic rocks erupted since that time, from small volcanoes that comprise most of the landscape on both sides of the road.

The Warner Range loomed on our left (east) all morning.

Most interesting were some road cuts that exposed a lumpy black basalt flow that poured over an earlier bed of smooth hardened rhyolite ash, which was white to pinkish gray in color. Unfortunately no photos, but take my word for it, it was super to see!

We ate lunch in Susanville and cruised on to Reno, where we hit Costco and then parked in the driveway of our dear friend Cheryl’s home. Patrick grilled us up some fabulous ribeyes, and we had a relaxing evening talking and watching TV. We’ll see Cheryl again later in the week at the class reunion.

Back on U.S. 395 the next morning, 185 miles south to Mammoth Lakes. We’ve driven this road south to north before, but this was our first time driving south. We were already at 4500 feet in elevation in Reno and never went any lower; we drove over several passes at over 8,000 feet, and when we got to Mammoth Lakes we were at 7800 feet. The Sierra Nevadas rose spectacularly on our right the whole way, and it’s simply not possible to describe how beautiful are the mountains of this granite batholith.

The Sierras are moving west on a fault, which split off the oldest, eastern edge of the mountains, creating extreme steepness of this side of the mountains, the separate range of the White Mountains to the east, and the Owens Valley in between that we were driving through.

We arrived midafternoon at our RV park at the foot of the Sierras, just south of the Mammoth Lakes area which we plan to explore tomorrow.