Visiting Bodie

Last week we decided it was time to take our somewhat annual trip to Bodie State Park and right off I was struck by the amount of transportation options on the road, RVs, toy haulers,Campers, pop-up tent trailers, trucks and boats. Cars pulling trailers and motorhomes toting cars all on their way to California State Parks and campgrounds, no doubt...or they are on their way to Canada. ;0)

In the photo below the middle vehicle is a motorhome pulling a car and the car is hauling scooters.

Mono Lake...south looking north. Taken from a moving car. ;0) Sheep...Baa The road to Bodie is a dusty one..."there's gold in them hills"! The entrance to Bodie. For those who don't know Bodie is an old gold mining ghost town which was once a rip roarin' town of 10,000 people. A mine caved in during the year 1875 and revealed pay dirt which sent Bodie booming. We usually stroll through town until we are too tired to visit the cemetery so this time that is where we started, at the cemetery. On the way there is some kind of machinery...a furnace? Rugby sniffed the Morgue which is just outside the cemetery gate.

Rosa May was a prostitute with a kind generous heart,she was buried just outside the cemetery boundary.

Bodie State Park is using Ground Penetrating Radar to find remains and mark the graves with colored flags. That is a lot of flags in a very small space don't you think?
This is the way I remember the graves. Wooden gravemarkers don't last though so it seems that they are being replaced by sturdy marble tombstones. Here is a shot of what I am sure is one of the new tombstones.

Local Bodie Bovine. ;0) Moo!The most recent burial in Bodie cemetery was on Jan. 9th 2003 the gravestone reads "God I've just arrived from Bodie. I am one of the Old Time Miners"

Repaired fence around a grave.

Looking East back at Bodie from the cemetery. I love the front porch of this house and the electric lamp by the door.

Old Barn. The Methodist Church is the only church left standing.

The inside.

The front door of the Miller house, the only house in Bodie visitors are allowed to walk through. An electric meter above the front door.

The bed in the living room is narrow but I think it looks like it was comfy. I don't think it was in the living room when people lived here, it may not have even been in this house. The park rangers have set up this one house for guests to walk through and get a feel for life on the inside. I doubt this fireplace kept the house warm. To the left you can see the bedroom and to the right the dining room.

The dining room has a woodstove just around the corner from the fireplace. I am sure the woodstove helped keep the family warm during Bodie's frigid winters. I wish that pie safe was in my house...I would fill it with fabric and books!

The kitchen has a fabulous cookstove that must have kept this room warm.

In the foreground of this photo there is a tiny child size glider/rocker. I had a hard time getting a good shot of it because the kitchen is roped off to visitors but I had to try, the chair is just too cute.

LOVE the bead board.

with a flash...

This chaise must have been so luxurious back in the 1800's. So many layers of linoleum!

more layers of linoleum

A pretty crib and a fabulous deep tub furnish this room.

A sewing machine was very useful then and now. This bed is very short and so ornate.I guess visitors have turned it into a "wishing bed" as it is covered in money. I love the sweet floral wallpaper.

The J Cain house, I wonder why they had that narrow little glass porchroom? You couldn't fit a chair in there. My hubby thinks it was for growing plants. Maybe he is right...it must have been nearly impossible to grow anything outside. The low on July 12th this year was 29 degrees and the high was 77...perfect. Bodie sits at 8375 ft. elevation so it gets very cold here and is often windy.

Wild Iris is lovin' the water.

I love the way this shot came out... so serene and green. Rugby checked out the creek.

Looking back towards the center of town. The building with the spire closest in the foreground is the school house and the one in the background with a spire is the Methodist Church.

This is the Stampmill.

I wonder how pretty these homes were when they were new?

I find it interesting that this house below is partially sided with flattened kerosene cans yet it has a stylish popout window.

It is rare for Bodie Creek to have water in my experience.

Remember how much snow we got this winter? 55ft on the top of our mountain and it kept snowing into June. Read below what Mark Twain had to say about our weather. Mono Lake from the car heading to Tioga Pass and Big Bend Camp.

Heading towards Big Bend I took this glorious shot.

Big Bend Campground is incredible and this year the river is Raging from all the snowmelt. On the right of the photo you can see the picnic table for one of the campsites, it is right at the edge of the river and the roar of the rapids is deafing. I am not sure I would feel safe sleeping that close to the river.

The sites were either all taken or flooded so we ended up sleeping in our own bed. That is one of the beautiful things that comes with living in vacationland.

Hope you all get time to have a little adventure. ;0)

Quest for Dirt 2

We made another trip with Rugby in order for her to get to play on something other than snow...our quest for dirt. This time we drove down the hill about 45 minutes and explored. We went to the spot where we like to float in inner tubes down the Owens River, in the middle of summer...not now! Brrr...

There are these two silos there that have always interested me. I happen to like graffiti...sometimes. To me it is a form of art. I love it on these silos but I wouldn't want it on the side of my house...or maybe I would? I guess it depends on the artist's ability.


When you have rescued a dog it is hard to know what they might do. I was afraid Rugby may decide to jump in the river. That river is deep and very cold right now...I didn't want to have to jump in. She is a smart girl though, she just watched the birds.

Then we stopped by the cemetery because I am participating in a Photo Scavenger Hunt and I need a photo of a tombstone that is one hundred years old or older. If it was spring time I would have gone to Bodie so I could get a recent shot of a really old headstone but the snow will not allow. So Bishop cemetery it is.

I found a few that I liked but the light was all wrong, I need to go in the morning. This first one belongs to Ben T. Williams died August 19, 1908, aged 58 years, native of Tennessee. The next one is a bit older, Carrie V. Neill, daughter, Died July 6, 1894, 27 years. Sometimes I think it is funny how one hundred years seems like a long time to me, I guess it is because I have always lived in the west. I read in a book recently that stated "Europeans think one hundred miles is a long way and Americans think one hundred years is along time". That's me!

I have a deep love for graveyards and I have a hard time explaining why. Maybe it has to do with my love of stories from the past, the history of it all. I have written about it before, here. I wander through careful not to step where the bodies would be, although the best cemeteries are the ones that are so old you can't tell where the bodies are, reading the epitaphs and imagining what that persons life was like and what killed them. I took 6 shots of this Jesus statue trying to get one with the sun right behind his head. This is the best one I got.

Graveyards are so peaceful, everyone is at rest here.

Hope you have a wonderful peaceful day. J