After work one day Elliott and I ambled around the town of Lone Pine, which includes several ramshackle old western buildings and even more imitation ramshackle old western buildings.
Here's the Bonanza Family Restaurant:
The Sierras and the Alabama Hills look like they're just a stone's throw from the town:

Lone Pine is full of kitch, such as this bizarre, Celtic-heart-style grafting experiment:

And here's Elliott, ready for a rousing day of survey:

In Lone Pine, even the McDonalds believes it has olde tyme charm:
When we first got there this week, we were staying at the Dow Villa - one of the old time-y places. It was creepy, though - starting with the teenage painted lady who checked us in (she had removed her natural eyebrows and painted them on in an entirely different place), to Julie's creepy-friendly neighbour, to the bathrooms you had to share with the guy next door, to the lack of a fridge and microwave. Since the website and literature made a large point of claiming to have all the missing amenities, Julie sent Elliott to take charge. The painted lady quickly bent in the face of Elliott's large, bearded irritation, so we got out of there and went back to the better motel. Here's what Elliott thought of the Dow Villa: