A hotdog, a wrong turn, a beautiful town

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We got up in the morning and had coffee with Jimin before heading out to the next destination. Zack had seen a special on the Food Network about Pink’s Hot Dog Stand years ago, and was delighted to learn that it was not that far from Koreatown. We decided to get one of these famous meat products, so we committed ourselves to standing in the 45-minute line. The wait wasn’t too bad, it was the deciding part that was tough. There are all kinds of specialty dogs, named after the people who have eaten them. Martha Stewart, Ozzie Osbourne, the Today Show, and Rosie O’Donnell, were just some of the options-some of them included multiple hot dogs. Zack got a bacon chili dog, I got a Chicago Polish Sausage. The food was good, not mind-blowing (it’s a hot dog-you can only help it so much), but we enjoyed it.

From there it was time to get back to the woods. We headed out into the Sequoia National Forest. We took the most surprisingly beautiful drive of the trip thus far. We were on major roads for most of the miles, but then we turned off the highway onto an unnamed grey line on the map. What we found was a scenic mountain road, where free-range cattle regularly appeared on the road. We drove up ridges with swaying gold grass on both sides. It was so quiet, no sounds but the wind through the plants. It was more than I can describe and for several minutes we just stood out side the car trying to absorb the scene.

We wound back down the mountain and then crested a hill that revealed a beautiful lake in valley and town of Lake Isabella. We pulled into town late in the evening and luckily found a National Forest campground called Pioneer Park. We put the tent up, quickly made sandwiches, then went down to the water. The marina across the road had a small beach access where we sat in the dark, looking at the water. The moon was so bright and the lake so reflective that I found myself squinting to look at it. We stayed there for a while, commenting on how the stars actually twinkle there and promising to come back to this place again.

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