"Small town with a big backyard"

So, the title is the town motto, which was adopted just over ten years ago now. There was a contest in the local newspaper, the Inyo Register, and this motto/tagline was the winner. It was penned by the Moore family. Dan Moore was the Superintendent/Principal at Round Valley elementary school at the time. His wife, Holly, is actually the person who came up with it, but it was submitted as a family, so I'm told.

I think it perfectly exemplifies what Bishop is like. It's a small town (population ~3800), but also the biggest "city" in the entire county. It will never get significantly larger, due to the fact that only 2% of Inyo county's land is available for private ownership (98% of Inyo county is owned by agencies of the Federal Government, Indigenous tribes, the state of California, and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, and therefore not available for private ownership).

And the "backyard?" Bishop lies in the Owens Valley, famously described by author Mary Austin as the "Land of Little Rain" as it lies in the rain shadow of the majestic Sierra Nevada mountains. To the east, the White Mountains loom as the boundary between Owens Valley at the Great Basin of the West, its peaks dotted with bristlecone pines, among the oldest trees on the planet.

I hope you get a chance to come visit, and enjoy what the Eastern Sierra has to offer. Thanks for coming to my TED talk... ;)