What a trip! It was so good and I’m still going through all my photos which is probably going to take me about a month to process all of them.
Back to the actual trip, Bodies sits at just about 8000ft feat and has some good history around it. Found during the Gold rush, it still has gold in the hills that surround it. As with my towns during the God Rush it was a pretty rough time having the title of the deadliest town in the US for a little while. During its heyday it had over 2,000 buildings. During the 1930’s it suffered two fires that devastated the town and it never fully recovered. The nail in the coffin was World War II when Roosevelt suspended gold and silver mining in favor of the war effort. Bodie’s post office was shut down shortly afterwards. People still resided in Bodie until the mid 1940’s when it was left in a state of arrested decay.
Our schedule ran from 5:00 AM until about 12:00PM and then from 5:00 PM to 12:00 PM. From Lee Vinning to Bodie Ghost town it is about an hour drive. And that isn’t trying to include eating food which if you get out to Lee Vinning is a great place for food. Epic Café is absolute the best place for eating. Try their blueberry pie with homemade whipped cream. So good. There were so many details to focus on which was a little overwhelming at times. It seemed that as soon as you looked somewhere else there was another picture to take. Part of Jennifer Kings trip was an exclusive look inside the buildings. Sometime during the 1960’s a park ranger set up some scenes in a few of the buildings in an attempt to drum up more excitement about what life was like in the town before it was abandoned. Since then nothing has been moved, to include the dust.
After a brief breakfast with the group and saying goodbyes, I set off on the second larger half of this adventure. Picking up Ben from Reno, NV. We drove down to Yosemite National Park and spent the night just outside of Yosemite. This morning we woke up, and drove into Yosemite. It is as good as everyone says it is. The drive going into and going out of Yosemite was just brilliant. So much to see and it is awe inspiring. As we had a long way to drive we didn’t stay long but we did do a small bit of hiking to Mirror Lake. Being late in the season the lake was pretty low but it allowed us to stand on the sand bar and admire the steep valley walls and watch the sun come over the tops. You feel very small standing in the middle of the valley with the giant granite cliffs surrounding you. Even when driving through Yosemite, the scenery is just spectacular. I slightly evny John Muir and I understand why he fought for so long to make the Park a protected place. There is an Interesting story about Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir in the woods of Yosemite talking about land protection and the beginning of the National Park Service.
We eventually stopped back and Lee Vinning for lunch and began our trek across Nevada going through several national forests, a Missile Test range, several abandoned gas stations (which was a little worrying by we made it through with 2.5 gallons left in the tank.) Currently We are on our way to Great Basin National Park where we are going to spend the night. We have Green Hatch Chile sausages for dinner that we plan on grilling or possibly broiling over an open Jetboil flame. I’m hoping to resume a more regular schedule now that the Photography trip is over and there is a slightly a more normal schedule of events. It’s still an adventure.