kartooner

For the past two weeks I’ve been vis­it­ing Bishop, Cal­i­for­nia located south of the infa­mous Mam­moth and about an hour away from Lone Pine. The inter­est­ing thing about Lone Pine is that the loca­tion has been used numer­ous amounts of times for Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions. The town is noto­ri­ous and famous for it’s Alabama Hills; an area filled with oddly shaped rocks and for­ma­tions. It’s a per­fect shoot­ing loca­tion for West­erns and has been uti­lized for var­i­ous films and tele­vi­sion shows like Star Trek and Tremors.

Most of the land in Bishop has been owned by the City of Los Ange­les since the early 20s and because of this the land — while bar­ren and trash-ridden — is free of new home expan­sion unless it’s granted or donated for an edu­ca­tional project. Like­wise, a por­tion of land is being used for the Reser­va­tion and includes a casino ran by the Native Amer­i­can com­mu­nity where locals burn their money faster than a speed­ing locomotive.

I’ve been com­ing up here since I was a kid. Often my Dad, brother and I would visit Bishop for a two to three day trip. We’d stay at the Town­house Motel and make fre­quent food stops at the AM/PM across the street bring­ing back re-heated burg­ers and ice cream sun­daes. Through­out the week my Dad and brother would go fish­ing and I’d choose stay in the hotel and watch cook­ing shows and informer­cials. We’d eat at places around town and on sub­se­quent trips watched Bishop flour­ish dur­ing the tourist sea­son and revert back to it’s home­town roots in the off season.

It was an expe­ri­ence that I will hold dearly in my mem­o­ries. Today with me being in New York with my wife and daugh­ter and my brother in the United States Navy we’re not as close in prox­im­ity to eachother as we used to be. Yet, we all still remain close in heart and with tech­nol­ogy we’re only a video­phone call away.

Some­day I hope to bring my daugh­ter back here when she’s old enough to under­stand and share with her the mem­o­ries I expe­ri­enced with my Dad and brother.