Get your mule on during Fantasy’s Mule Days Rally, May 22-27, 2019!
Every Memorial Day, Bishop, California, the sleepy gateway to the majestic Eastern Sierra mountain range, roars to life with Bishop Mule Days Celebration. It’s a festival for an unusual unsung hero: the mule. After all, these lovable beasts of burden played a vital part in the history and growth of the Owens Valley, and they deserve some recognition. This wild event is part competition, part Wild West spectacle, and all crazy featuring 14 shows, 700 mules, and 30,000 spectators. Best of all, 2019 is the 50th anniversary of this mule madness!
Whoa, Nellie! Exactly what kind of mules are we talking about? To fashionistas, mules are women’s shoes without backs, also called “slides.” Others are more familiar with a delicious cocktail served in a shiny copper mug, called a Moscow Mule. But the mules we’re celebrating are not shoes, or happy drinks, they’re the real deal, the product of a female horse and a male donkey. These mules have been working long and hard and like you, and they’re ready to party!
This big-eared, 6-day adventure begins in Bishop at a custom campground Fantasy creates just for you with 30-amp electric hookups, water and honey wagon service. After Fantasy’s signature Orientation, Get Acquainted Party and Opening Night dinner, we get down to mule business the very next day with a Bishop area bus tour. We’ll observe and even feed the rainbow and golden trout at the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery. We’ll stop at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory and marvel at the telescopes of all shapes and sizes operated by Caltech. (We know that if they told us what their top-secret research actually was, they’d have to kill us!) A somber stop at Manzanar National Historic Site, one of 10 camps where 110,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War ll, gives us pause to reflect on all of those whose lives were impacted by global war. Next, get ready for your close-up! Long one of tinsel town’s favorite filming destinations, Lone Pine is a stop for the Museum of Western Film History. Mother Nature provides the gorgeous backdrop to a picnic before our tour ends. But there’s still more Fantasy fun as we head to the Mule Days auditorium for a concert and a chance to meet the performers.
Day 3 starts and ends just the way we like it – with two epic meals, a hearty pancake breakfast and a barbecue dinner. In between, we check out the Mule Days vendors in downtown Bishop, and attend various interesting classes, clinics and demonstrations given by top competitors and trainers devoted to all things mule. You’re also welcome to stroll through the barns and stalls to meet the mules and their animal friends. After you’ve worked up an appetite, head over to Food Alley for some famous Bishop Indian tacos. Now it’s time to shop! A variety of indoor and outdoor vendors offer everything from western tack and apparel to candy.
Then it’s time to take these mules seriously from our reserved seats at the Mules Days Grandstand Events. Watch in amazement as mules compete in traditional horse events: English Jumping, Dressage, Team Roping, Western Riding and last but not least, Mule Racing. Like they say in Bishop, “Anything a good horse can do; a mule can do better!” We perch in town for a barbecue dinner.
Mules on Main Street starts Day 4 and is the longest-running non-motorized parade in the world. Another pancake breakfast, and then it’s time for more fun with mules. Again, we’ll take our reserved grandstand seats for today’s official Mule Days Grandstand Events: Pack Scrambles, Chariot Racing, and Musical Tires are the main attractions. The evening features a Saturday Night Dance for all attendees (mules excluded).
Bishop is the "Small Town with a Big Backyard,” and there’s plenty to do in and around the area. Grab a sandwich at world-famous Erik Shat’s Bakery, renowned for their sheepherder bread. Law’s Railroad Museum and Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center both offer a fascinating crash course in native heritage and frontier culture. The surrounding wilderness is user-friendly and fully accessible for biking, hiking, fishing, bird watching, climbing, golfing and even off-roading.
The Dolly Parton race (use your imagination) and donkey barrel racing are just two of the entertaining final events on our last day. Over our Farewell dinner that evening and our Goodbye Continental breakfast the next morning, there will be plenty of time to share tall mule tails. So many mules, so little time to book this unique Fantasy Rally! Don’t be stubborn as a you-know-what, and miss out on Fantasy’s magnificent “Mulepalooza!”
Please note: itinerary subject to change