We left Yosemite Park bound for Bishop on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Range. It was a pleasant drive and we took a short detour to see Mammoth Lakes, a winter ski resort town. We hoped to stay overnight in Bishop before entering Death Valley, but all we seemed to encounter were motels displaying No Vacancy signs and with beautiful cars in their parks. Then someone explained to us that this weekend was a major custom street car convention in Bishop and that every motel in the district was booked out. So we had no choice but to travel on, only to find the same story in town after town. We stopped for dinner at a highway-side Diner, and ordered steaks. The waiter was curt and surly, and I seemed to drive him to the edge of his sanity by changing the order from medium to well-done. This irritated him intensely, and he yelled the order-change to the chef. The food was even more ghastly than the service and when the waiter gruffly asked how our dinner was, we meekly replied that it was filling. Well it was; cement would be too, but we had no desire to push the waiter right over the edge. I overheard the people sitting at the next table make a change to their order too, but no doubt having already sized the waiter up, they cautiously added that if it was too much trouble everything was fine just as it was. If we ever hear of a rampage in these parts I'll be ringing the cops with the description of a dude they'd do well to take a real close look at.We were happy to hit the road again to continue our search for a bed for the night, and eventually we came to the small town of Lone Pine, only a short distance before the turn-off to Death Valley. It was 10pm, we were tired, and we didn’t wish to go any further that night. But our hopes were dashed again when we discovered that this town was having its annual Film Festival this weekend and every motel in this valley was booked out too!!! Defeated, we pulled into a dimly lit parking spot a block away from the main street, put the seats back, and went to sleep in the car. It was a surprisingly comfortable night and we would have slept past 4.30am had we not been awoken by the cold. We had a quick breakfast at McDonalds, the only place in town open at this hour, and we were back on the still-dark highway shortly after five.
