Mammoth Lakes is well known for its natural hot springs and some nice locals have built hot tubs around them.  None of them are “official” or marked, so you have to know about them in order to find them.  Or, just do a Google search.

After our hot-tubbing, we decided to take a drive and ended up going through the Inyo National Forest and found ourselves in an area called the Volcanic Tableland.  We joked that it felt like we had landed on the moon, as the terrain was so odd looking.  I had to consult Google & this is what I found:  “The Volcanic Tablelands is a vast volcanic landscape that was formed over 700,000 years ago by materials spewing from the Long Valley caldera”.  Ok, I confess, I had to look up “caldera” too – A caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters. 

We didn’t pass a single car or any man made objects for miles and miles.  It was very cool.