Lone Pine is a small town just east of the Sierra Navada mountains, about an hour or so outside of Death Valley.  It's also near the Alabama Hills, which are famous as a setting for movies such as Tremors (with the esteemed Kevin Bacon), and many other lesser-known films.  On the way to Lone Pine are two other sites:  Manzanar, one of the WWII Japanese detainment camps; and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to the oldest single living thing we've been able to measure.  Unfortunately Carrie and I did not get to stop at either of these places -- they'll have to be for the next grand roadtrip.

In brighter news, however, our awesome airbnb was filled with cat things.

Our host, Robert, also promised to mail us some of Lone Pine's locally roasted coffee (it's featured in the airbnb listing, but was unavailable when we visited).  Great place, great host.

Carrie and I headed in to the Alabama Hills to try to get a glimpse of the filming location of Kevin Bacon's famed "Tremors."  Unfortunately the road ("Movie Road") was closed, so we had to turn around and climb on some rocks instead.  It's maybe not my best decision to skitter around boulders without a helmet or safety equipment, but there were a fair number of people around so I probably wouldn't have to one-hundred-twenty-seven hours myself.  Plus it allowed us to take some sick rock-acrobat photos.

We also stopped to reflect on our appreciation for the Rugged Prius, which still had all-but-two-parts and had not yet started to emit smoke from its brake pads (this is certainly not foreshadowing.)

While trying to find a way around the previously-mentioned roadblock to the historic filming location of the esteemed Tremors, we inadvertently drove halfway up a mountain and found ourselves at the trailhead to summit Mt. Whitney (the highest point in the contiguous United States).  It was beautiful.  We did not summit it.

We'd just about reached the Alabama Hills at the foot of Mt. Whitney when we started smelling a bad smell.  It wasn't Truman (or Carrie), it was the Rugged Prius.  We got out to see white smoke coming from the break-pads in the wheels.  This is when we remembered about engine breaking and promptly figured out how to spare the poor Rugged Prius' breaks during Rugged Descents.  This would become especially important as we headed down into Death Valley.