After visiting Bodie, we stopped at another Deb recommendation on our way south and saw Mono Lake. This lake is visible from the highway but you can’t see the incredibly cool rock formations from there. Thankfully Deb had sent me a picture so I knew we had to find it which was tougher than I thought it would be as the visitors center was closed.
There are several entrances (some by foot and others by car) but it just wasn’t clear which way to go. Finally we looked at the big map outside the visitors center and with a little bit of luck we found the entrance. The parking lot has a day use fee but with our National Parks pass it was free to us. There was a fantastic wooden boardwalk that was Jack friendly and we started walking down towards the lake. The closer we got we saw signs showing where the lake was in certain years and started seeing the rock formations.
There were lots of signs along the way explaining what we were seeing which was great because personally I have never seen anything like this before. Basically the lake is over 1 million years old with no outlet and has high levels of salinity. There are brine shrimp in this lake and it is an important migration stop for many birds. As the lake receded the Tufa towers (calcium carbonate spires) were exposed which is a beautiful and eerie landscape. It is one of those places where pictures can’t really capture but I tried my best.
It was absolutely beautiful and we walked the whole trail which Jack really enjoyed. He kept trying to drink the lake water though which we weren’t sure if that was a good thing. There were also tons of ground squirrels in the bushes and we even saw some wild horses near the edges. He had a great time and we did as well because it was a truly awe inspiring place.
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Camper Chronicles 
Mono Lake is cool. We’ve checked it out from both sides. We’ve never been able to kayak on it yet though. Love the info about it.