Going Way, WAY back to 2015: Visiting Bodie Ghost Town!

A long time ago

In a County far, far away

GOLD RUSH

Prospectors, including W.S. Bodey, found gold in present day Mono County in 1859.  Together, they founded a little mining town that later came to be known as:  Bodie

The group's fearless leader, Bodey, didn't live to see the town flourish and be named after him as he died the following November in a blizzard.

May be a good thing since people could never get this name straight and the town was named Bodey, then Body, and finally, Bodie as a painter mislabeled a stables in nearby Aurora as Bodie Stables. I think that would be hurtful!

Bodie is quite an amazing ghost town to visit.  It is pretty large and it's said that it would take at least 5 hours to see all the buildings.  I can attest that on this visit in late October 2015, I got to Bodie at about 10:00 a.m. and stayed until about 4:00 p.m. and still didn't see everything!  Although I did visit a lot of the outlying houses and wandered around quite a bit so that might have had something to do with it. 

I got to Mono County at the crack of dawn as I wanted to take photos at Mono Lake and hopefully catch the sunrise.  You can see those gorgeous photos by clicking on this sentence!  Mono Lake and it's very cool Tufa is an amazing place to visit in and of itself. 

Word of caution:  Bodie is at the end of Highway 270 off of Highway 395 and 270 becomes a very rough road about halfway there. And currently, the restrooms (which are amazingly nice normally) are closed due to the December 2016 earthquakes.  They do have porta-potties set up though.  

Click here to go to the Bodie State Park website for more information.

And now on to the photos. 

I'm going to warn you that I have 90-something photos.  So of course I'm not going to put them all in this post.  I'm going to split it up into categories.  And this first category is:

The 'Burbs

I was pretty into weird self-portraits on this day.  I call this next one "Self-Portrait of a Ghost".

I called this the "Fancy House" because it has a really cool porch and just looked, well...fancy!  

But even so, the outhouse is miles away!  Especially when you have to go at 2:00 a.m.

This was another house that was mostly intact, but obviously had a fire and general damage.  Most of the windows/doors had wide chicken wire over them which I was able to shoot through.

 Same house with bowed walls. 

 This is the water spigot and pail for the Fancy House.  It was about 30 feet in front of the porch. 

Rusty saw and tin can top I found on the ground near the Fancy House.

Self-portrait on the porch of the Fancy House. 

 The leaning outhouse of the Fancy House. 

Tin Can Dump near Fancy House

Rusted old car - love the steering wheel sticking up!

Getting closer to town. 

We'll end this post with another outhouse because they're so fun and fascinating!

In the next exciting post, we'll explore the history, equipment, and remnants of the mining.

TTFN!

xoxo

Nikon D3000

Travelogue - Bodie Ghost Town Cemeteries 10/25/2015

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I visited Bodie Ghost Town State Historic Park!  And I haven't even finished editing all my pictures from my trip.  

But tomorrow I'll be visiting Bodie for the second time so I thought I'd better get at least some of these posted.  Tomorrow is the final Star Stories and Ghost Walk event for the year at Bodie.  I won't be going on the Ghost tours (no money, no ghostie), but I'm definitely all in for the stars!

I was already planning to try to do my first star and moon night shoot on August 27th, because it's a crescent moon which is one of my favorites.  And then I realized it was the night of the event and the sky above the high desert is simply amazing!  

So I knew I had to make it happen. 

These pictures are from October and of course this is August, so I'm hoping there won't be so many clouds tomorrow.  Clouds aren't so great for star photos.  But they make some magnificent daytime photos.

So the only pictures I have edited are from the Bodie Cemetaries.  Yes, plural.  

But that's a perfect tie in with the Ghost Walk theme, right?  

It is!!  So here we go.  

One of the sad things about historical cemeteries is how many graves there are for children.  It was a hard, hard life back then.  And losing children was a common trial of the times. 

There are a lot of "lost" graves in Bodie.  The Bodie Foundation is working hard to identify and mark these graves with a little help from four-legged friends.  The next picture  is a newly located grave with a flag for future identification.

And the next shows a grave with a "new" wooden marker.

Did I mention that the high desert under the wide open sky with a bazillion fluffy clouds is amazing?

Buried here are the mortal remains of Waterman S. Bodey...

Yes, the town name is misspelled.  A town painter messed up and it stuck.  Sad thing is, in July 1989, Mr. Bodey did find gold as he set out to do...but he died several months later by freezing to death during a supply run to Monoville.  

And yet, he lives on.  

His legacy is this amazing, preserved by nature, ghost town. 

This next grave is the site of the last remaining minor in Bodie.

The coil of wires seems to be a theme.  I don't know what it means exactly...Google has let me down.  It could just be a touch of the old west or it could be symbolic of Christ's crown of thorns (which is what some barbed wire tattoos mean).

So many graves for children. 

"Think of your child, then, not as dead, but as living.

Not as a flower that has withered, but has been transplanted.

Touched by a Divine hand,

Blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those of earth."

~~Richard Hooker

Breathtaking sky over Boot Hill.  

The morgue under black and white fury.

See you tomorrow Bodie!!!  I cannot wait!

xoxo

Nikon D3000