December 12-13, 2013 Lone Pine, California

 

We had coffee with our friend Laura Campbell yesterday morning in Lone Pine. We met Laura when she lived in Shoshone, she now lives in Lone Pine. This cute black cat sat on the kayak and looked longingly into the front window of the bus.  I am sure he was thinking Feed Me!

My sister Judy arrived yesterday. We met her here to go to the Fruit Cake festival on Saturday. She treated us to dinner at the Still Life café in Independence. Judy, Sue, John and Mary Roper a hiking buddy of Judy’s who lives in Independence, Ca. Today we toured National historic site of  Manzanar, the Japanese relocation camp here. It was a very depressing story, but the exhibits are well done.

This area used to be a lush fertile valley. The Paiutes lived here for 1,000’s of years. When the white settlers came the military forcibly removed 1000 Paiutes to a reservation. The town of Manzanar (apple grove in Spanish) was a farming community with apple, pear, peach orchards and alfalfa. In the 1920’s LA secretly and underhandedly bought out the water rights and built an aqueduct to LA and drained the river, turning this area into a desert. Then in WWII the relocation camp was here.  After the war it was closed , dismantled and sold off. the park service acquired the site in the 1990’s.

The memorial in the grave yard. It was originally outside the barbwire in a peach orchard. A flock of 1000 origami cranes left as an offering at the memorial.

The moon rising over the Inyo mountains. The Japanese landscaped the area and built many beautiful gardens. This was the cornerstone of the Pleasure Park garden.

The top of this photo has the rockwork and a wooden bridge left in the Pleasure park. The bottom part is a picture of what it looked like in 1943. The military built 800 tar paper barracks like the two above. They were 20 x 100 feet, divided into 4 rooms with up to 8 people per room. There was no running water or furniture in them. The internees were give cloth bags to fill with straw for their mattresses and an army blanket. There were central latrines and mess halls. There was no privacy.

The internees built this auditorium for recreation and gatherings. It is now the visitors center with a nice exhibit inside. The camp was surrounded by barb wire and 8 of these guard towers.

Judy, Sue and John having dinner at the Merry Go Round café in Lone Pine.