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This is our campsite at Lee Vining, our base camp for the Eastern Sierras.  The campground is called Mono Vista RV Park and was a nice place, sites are a little tight, but in the summer sites in this area are usually full.  The two ladies running the registration and camp store were most helpful with local information.  The evening we arrived, we did not want to cook so we asked were best to eat in town and the reply was "the Mobil station" and it would be extra special since they got a new chandelier.  Not one to pass on local knowledge we went there.  It was packed with probably 200 people and it was live music night.  The chef was a 5 star chef from the east coast that fell in love with the area and stayed and now ran a hopping place in the Mobil station.  The food was quite good and the atmosphere was better then you would think.

One day 2 we traveled along June Lake Scenic Loop on our way to Mammoth and Devil's Postpile.  This is Silver lake, one of the many beautiful mountain lakes in the area.

To see Devils Postpile National Monument you must park at the Mammoth Ski lodge, buy tickets and ride the tram buses around the mount to the various stops for hikes, etc.  Below is a meadow and mountain stream that we passed on the 1 mile hike from the bus stop to the Postpile itself.

Below is the scene at the Devils Postpile  The interesting columns were created by crystallized formations of volcanic matter as it cooled.

These Posts are all independent and standing up.  Over time many have fallen to the pile of rubble you see below.

It is amazing to see how nature was able to create these 8 sided posts with such exact edges, you would think these have been cut by man ready to be used for the columns of a great palace.

From the Postpile we continued on our hike to the 101 ft. tall Rainbow Falls, another 1.5 miles further on the hiking trail.  In 2006 there was an extra amount of snow fall in the Sierras so even in mid August the streams and rivers were still flowing with good volume.  This made our trip to Yosemite even better, since most waterfalls usually are barely flowing at this time.

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