The road to Yosemite

On the way to Yosemite we stopped in Lone Pine on the advice of our son, Nick. He recommended the Lone Pine Film Museum, which documents and displays memorabilia from the hundreds of films that were made in the nearby Alabama Hills. Hollywood long believed this area to be an iconic image of the wild west, and given its physical proximity, it was easy to film here.

In addition to early westerns staring John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Gene Autry, Gary Cooper and a host of others, we found here the actual dentist wagon prop from Django Unchained starring Jamie Foxx. We also found the wall that the director Quentin Tarantino and the cast signed when they visited the exhibit.

Near Lone Pine is the Manzanar National Historic Site. In 1942, nearly 110,000 men, women and children were forced to leave their homes and be detained in this military style camp. The vast majority of the detainees were US citizens.

This visitor center actually occupies what was the gymnasium built in the early 1940’s to serve the detainees in the camp, and is the only building that remains from that time. Some barracks have been recreated to show what life was like in Manzanar for these citizens whose rights were ignored.

While no buildings other than the visitor center exist, the eerie remains of what the detainees built to add a bit of “home” to their prison brings a lump to your throat. The residents built koi ponds and Japanese gardens to take away some of the sting of their situation. While the koi are long dead, as are the plants that graced these areas, you can still clearly see the detail that was put into these spaces.

Another National Historic Site falls off the list.

Talk to you soon!