Bodie, the ghost town

Bodie

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Day 2 – June 19, 2021

I woke up first and scanned through the surrounding woods of the Sonora Pass before going down to the river for a wash in the early hours… The water was cold and I was trying to remain steady on the slippery rocks as I pushed off a tick crawling on my arm.

Glen shows care and respect allowing me for privacy as I deal with an old time self-consciousness. 

Once I was done bathing and went back to the camp, we grabbed the Sawyer purifying system and went back to the river to fetch our drinking water. 

 

Glen then unpacked all pieces of equipment we had bought the day before. Almost finished taking down the tent, I found Glen sat against the side of the car; he had an absence seizure and couldn’t focus on what I was asking him. I felt helpless but when we were done packing, I gave him a head massage hoping to help him relax. I then sat behind the wheel and drove us out of our amazing camping spot.

We reached a new level of comfort as Glen and I are getting to know one another and conversations get deeper.

We stopped in a rest area with a breathtaking view over Donnell Lake and its dam before driving through mountains and along creeks and rivers until we spotted a herd of sheeps and their guard dogs in a luscious green field. The picture was too beautiful not to stop. 

Walking amidst the fluffy creatures and their beautiful guardian dogs, we spotted their shepherd afar and walked to the man. He was soft-spoken and radiated kindness. From Peru, he spoke only Spanish. We couldn’t help but seeing in him a good omen for our upcoming travels towards South America.

With joyful hearts, we hit the road again, to Bodie this time…

 

We visited Bodie in the late afternoon. 

I was dreaming of visiting a true ghost town and Bodie did not disappoint. We made it to the abandoned town 20 minutes before the park closed for the night. This made for the perfect visit: The last visitors were leaving as we entered the site, leaving us with a more realistic feeling of walking amidst the buildings of an abandoned town.
 
In the late 19th century Bodie flourished as its gold and silver attracted people from across the nation. Legend has it that the “curse of Bodie” will fall on you if you happen to take a “souvenir”, even as simple as a rock, from the ghost town… And so the park staff regularly received letters of apologies and packages containing returned items once pocketed from one or the other deserted house… It remains unknown whether the anonymous guilty souls had any idea that the rumor of bad luck was once created by a park ranger attempting to keep people from stealing artifacts…

 

After passing Mono Lake and after enjoying its rich birdlife and the view of the lake, we were looking for a spot to set camp. 

That night, we set up camp in the desert of Sierra Nevada outside of Bishop, California. Glen pulled on the side of the road in what looked to me like the middle of the desert and asked me if I was okay setting up camp there. I really didn’t know what to say and felt shy both because I knew nothing about camping, let alone boondocking, and because Glen was still new to me. 

It was already peach dark when we set up the camp and my headlamp flashed a coyote or jackal some 100 mètres away. We decided to set the tent behind a sandy wall by the roadside. It was full of thorny low bushes and as we found a clearing a few metres away, we had to carry Zill to the tent to preserve his paws. 

That night, I fell asleep with only a madeup picture of where I was at, somewhere in the middle of a desert.

The next day would have us on some serious adventure…