The 395 has angled steeply up the incline of the mountain on the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and Don proudly shows off the power of his V8 Hemi engined Dodge Charger, after all if it wasn't for the brute force of his rear-wheel-drive beast we may have struggled to get up there at all (isn't that right Donald?! ). We are now riding 9000 feet above the sea level and the peaks of the bare mountains seem almost within reach. While there is life up here, it is sparse and little more than gorse and hardy grass prevails. This is wilderness indeed... a perfect setting for the destination we are heading for.... the abandoned ghost town of Bodie.Think of Bodie as the epitomy of the Wild West portrayed in the movies, a rural town notorious for wickedness and badmen, robberies, stagefights and death. By 1879 this gold mining town had a population that had swollen to approximately 10,000 souls and over the next 10 years produced $35 million of gold. This town was known as the wildest in the West with regular killings. Perhaps understandable when you take into account the extreme weather conditions, for in the winter the town would be stranded in the grip of -35C temperatures, up to 100 mile per hour winds and deep snow drifts..... enough to drive people to the edge perhaps?!
"Goodbye God, I'm going to Bodie" one little girl wrote in her diary as her family set off to start a new life!
We turn off the 395 between the walls of two cliffs that look as though they have just opened up to swallow us. The small lane snakes through the gully occasionally passing patches of vegetation that indicate the juice of life is present. There is no chance of going fast and one soon begins to feel a little claustrophobic. The gloomy grey cliffs and darkly cast shadows fall away a few miles down the lane to reveal a pasture of sorts... a lush, soft green immediately filling you with a brief sense of relief... when the tarmac suddenly runs out and we are cast onto a dusty track more suitable for a horse and cart! The scenery once more radiates the heat from the sun the only indication of life is dry grass. And then, after a few miles of airborn dust whipping up from the rolling tyres, we roll around the slope of a hill and deep rust coloured wooden shacks begin to appear in the dry meadows of the valley. The ricketty manmade forms are scattered with very little apparent order, with the more modern large grey sheds of the mines looming over the far slopes. Metal debris that has taken the same deep reddish brown tones as the wooden forms litters the scape amongst the dead grass and up on the slopes to our left the crumbling remains of wooden, stone and metal grave markings peep out from scorched undergrowth.
10,000 residents? Hard to imagine when you see the remnants of the town. The latter of two fires destroyed hotels, houses, saloons and the like in 1932 and until it was designated a historic park in 1962 it was left for the elements to decide Bodie's fate. There have been no efforts to restore the town, but instead the endeavour has been to maintain the 5% that remains in a state of "arrested decay". The little boy in me re-surfaced and my fascination with ruins and destruction resurfaced once more. With the map in hand (mine!) we explored the hard dirt streets of Bodie....
Old skeletal electricity pylons line the two main streets. The Protestant church with the old pews and a log burner clinging to the sinking wooden floorboards beneath the simple peaked windows. The crumbling wooden horse trap pulled straight out of a Western movie. The brick post office and hotel... a dusty saloon bar, stools and remnants of a liqueur display still visible through the windows. The wooden structure of the men's club leaning up against the hotel with all sorts of old fashioned gymnasium equipement still in place underneath crumbling wallpapered walls. The little town morgue (a stable business to be in no doubt! ) with its once richly decorated front rooms for family of dead relatives to discuss funeral arrangements.... the ornate wallpaper now bleached of most of its colour now crumbles onto the daybed and padded furniture below... then through a second window a casket sits alone in a room in all of its glory, awaiting the final goodbye from loved ones... and through the third a large display of remarkably short caskets fills a room. A bell hangs over the shed that is the fire house on Main Street next to the ruins of a hotel. The windows along the front of the schoolhouse reveal a single large classroom full of educational equipement from old cast-iron and wood single desks to the final writings on a large blackborad, from a cracked wooden ball the size of a football on the windowsill that once indicated to the kids where the President of the United States lived or where the two poles are to a dusty image of a human skeleton.... thick sheets of dust blended the scattered books into the surfaces of furniture. The Boon Store windows reveal shelves packed with displays of everyday goods that the people of Bodie needed to go about their lives. A peek through the window of a small wooden house reveals the collapsed ceiling and falling walllpaper once more and the thick dusty scattered over the table and chairs, the metal stove and the little iron bed visible through a doorway.
One house was open to walk into.... the remnants of the former owners scattered around, from an ornate chaise-longue below a weathered mirror, to the kitchen that still has a cupboard containing some encrusted china, old bottles and cooking equipment and the shreds of net curtains over a crumbling window. Broken layers of floor lino and decorative wallpaper reveal the basic wooden structure underneath and betray the humble standard of living.
It is truly bizarre that the villiage sits like this, as though residents fled in a rush with no care for their belongings. Rooms are untouched and caked in decades of dirt, while outside the extreme elements endeavour to raise it to the ground. The empty space where buildings once stood is now filled with metal scrap, from old mining tools and machinery to the rusting hulks of motor vehicles and wooden carts.
The sight of an old iron bathtub was too much to miss and so I whipped off my shirt to pose for the camera.... and on endeavouring to climb out I hear "Hey no! Stay in therrrre!" cried out by a white haired old man with a great dane (not his wife for she was behind his four-legged companion) and a camera pointed in my direction... so I obliged and proceeded to scrub under my arms!
Stories of duels, bank robberies, horrific accidents and of prostitues trying to be accepted by the community are rife and sketchy. Untold things have happened in this eery place and there is an overwhelming sense of.....
....well, lets just say that I would not want to spend the night there.
