Photos From the Road: Halfway House Cafe and Vasquez Rocks

As I mentioned a few days ago, earlier this month we spent a few days relaxing in the High Sierras. The mountains were a perfect place to enjoy a "socially distanced" vacation with lots of time in the great outdoors.

We visited some interesting film-related locations along the way, starting with breakfast at the Halfway House Cafe in Canyon Country, a suburb of Santa Clarita, California.

The Halfway House Cafe was founded in 1931 and has appeared in a number of movies and TV shows, including Clint Eastwood's EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE (1978).

Interiors and exteriors for WAITRESS (2007), starring Keri Russell and Andy Griffith, were filmed here, as seen at this blog.

Most if not all restaurants in California are takeout and/or outdoor dining this summer, and we enjoyed a nice breakfast on the cafe's back patio. And I came home with this mug to add to my collection!

From the cafe it was a short jaunt down the road to Vasquez Rocks. We have seen the rocks from the highway on many occasions, and my husband did some hiking there a few years ago, but this was my first time to see the area up close.

It's a short hike...

...to this location used for decades in Westerns, STAR TREK, and more. This is the "back" side as we approached from where we parked...

...and the "front." Click any photo to enlarge it for a closer look.

It was quite fun that later in our trip I watched the John Wayne film DAKOTA (1945) on my portable DVD player, and there was second unit photography of a stagecoach traveling exactly where we'd just been!

In the movie the stagecoach heads toward the rocks and then turns right, going up the path seen at the right edge of this photo.

Some other views of the surrounding area:

As we headed north we also drove past another familiar Western location, Red Rock Canyon:

These pictures were snapped quickly as we drove past.

When we drove through Lone Pine our favorite Alabama Hills Cafe was closed for an oven repair, but we got a nice takeout lunch from another regular stop, Frosty Chalet, and enjoyed a picnic across the street at Spainhower Park.

Coming next: Our visit to the fascinating Hot Creek Geological Site outside Mammoth Lakes, a location seen in NORTH TO ALASKA (1960), NEVADA SMITH (1966), and other movies. Update: Here are the Hot Creek photos!