Repairing the Truck and the last of Bodie

The alternator smoked a short ways from camp... so we ended up making the day on the Bike. What we should have done to start with. Except for the fact that the alternator likely wouldn't have croaked until we're making our camp move in another couple of days... so we'd be ON the road with the whole dang rig.

Soooo... that it turned up its toes before we'd got far from camp was a good thing considering the lack of on the road tribulation we had to endure... made better by the fact that that Napa Auto Parts warrantied the year and a half old thing 100% yesterday afternoon.

$180 alternator zero dollars. Suh-Wheet!

And of course, me being me, the one receipt that's vanished from the truck parts file envelope... was the one for the alternator... But the West Yellowstone NAPA came through for us. They found the sale on their computer and faxed a copy down to Mammoth Lakes so I could get the warranty! :)

That's an example of why I deal with NAPA and Discount Tire... Just about anywhere we are I can find one to take care of any gremlins that crawl into our camp.

Which lets me finish up our Bodie trip.

*Bodie Cemetery*

The Bodie cemetery rests on a low rise overlooking the town. We look in quite a few of the old cemeteries. They are a window into the past... if you look.

Stop for a bit and contemplate on what you see in these old burial grounds... you can learn a lot more about the people who lived there... and a bit of the struggles they endured. You can get a subconscious feeling for who they were...

It helps a person gain some perspective on their own difficulties.

 Something that jumped out at me in Bodie was a truly sorrowful thing. I vow, it seemed like half the monuments were for children.

A thing that really cut deep was how many of the memorials revealed that mothers had lost multiple children...

... often within days of each other.

I didn't see it spoken of in any of the papers I saw...

But Bodie seemed a hard place for young folks to grow up...

The thought of losing not a single child but pairs of daughters...
That's just a thing I don't even want to think about.

But that happened here.

From what the cemetery reveals... an all too common thing.

The dates of their loss seem to cluster in a few rather narrow time periods. It appeared to me that there was an impact in Bodie of the great flu epidemic of the 1918 period...

It seemed like another couple of time periods saw a big spike.

Those gravestones would seem to show a great sorrow...

But that's Not the feeling I got walking around the remains of the town.

The words are hard for me to line up.

In a town where so many parents lost their children I didn't get the feeling of lost hope and crushed spirits.

The newest and youngest of the markers was for a man who passed in 2003!

His family apparently honored his wishes and placed his remains in Bodie.

The thing you feel here... if you've opened up that part of you to pick up on it... is that even though the people have gone... moved on... this place holds a sense of community... a piece of them still survives.

I've walked through other ghost towns and could only feel the rough and tumble of a mining camp. Saloons, brothels, jails...

Here, you see school houses, churches, fire stations... layers of flooring and wall coverings... they show an intention to last. It's a completely different feel than the rough and bawdy camps... You get the feeling that the people who lived here, despite the sorrows that occasionally fell on them... saw this place as Home...

I've read where many people, many cultures feel a spiritual connection with a certain place... that no matter where they go... where they live... there is one place, one piece of ground that is their Spiritual home ground.

I believe that for many... Bodie is their Family Home...

Generations are buried here. They show a bond to this place. It gives a man pause and something to measure himself against.

In another couple of days this old gypsy will be blowing in the wind once more...

Toward the Far Horizon
Brian

A Rough Start to a Fine Day on the Way Into the Past...

The idea was to run up to the cafe' at Silverlake for an Anniversary Breakfast. (34th) and then continue on to the Ghost town of Bodie.

There' a bit of Trivia for you... the name of the guy the town is named after is "Bodey" on his grave marker... the state spells the town "Bodie" I guess you can take your pick. ;)

Anyhoo... we made it 'bout a mile... and smoked the alternator in the truck... again. You might recall we smoked it early during the great Hitch destruction of 2011.

Sooooo... I swapped ends and rolled back to camp.

Unwilling to sacrifice the day to busted machinery... Heidi changed her clothes to be more appropriate to sitting on a bad red motorcycle... and we headed out again...

*June Lake California*

Bright and cool morning. Hot rod Yamaha. Gorgeous high mountain country in the Eastern Sierras... It don't get a whole lot better.

We did have to wait a short while so herself could do a lil' "business management" on the side of the road. ;) Then on we rolled for the Silverlake resort.

We had lunch there a week or so back, which was excellent...

... so we thought it a good place for this breakfast... or by the time we got there after swapping transport... brunch.

With full bellies we headed off to the Ghost Town of Bodie, Calif.

I always get a weird, almost melancholy feeling in a Ghost Town. It's as if I can almost hear the voices, see the people moving about, living their lives. Going through their struggles...

In Bodie, those ghosts are maybe even a lil' stronger. The place lasted up into the 1940's. In places, it's as if the people just walked out, closed the door behind them leaving almost everything behind.

I can see them coming in and out of doorways... working at their various tasks...

Peering through dusty windows into the past... seeing the shadows moving around... it's just an odd, melancholy feeling.

Can't you hear the laughter, the tears, the voices?

Or is this just the rambling of a born out of season, mush brained old pussgut biker cowboy? 

*Bodie general store*

The smell of breakfast cooking... the clink of dishes...

The rattle of trace chains... as teams pulled wagons past the old livery stable...

Or even the grinding of gears and the rumble and pop of those old engines in the later years... as the trucks and cars moved around in the town... or coming and going from far places...

I can see hands on tools and machinery that's been left laying about... Faces looking out of windows...

... we discovered something here that all RV'ers can use as well. It'd be a new technique for Full Time Boondockers to conserve water...

Bathe with your clothes on!

Wash you and your duds all at the same time.

... and it'd work good for those cold winter showers as well! ;)

There's a bit more to tell 'bout Bodie... But there's a busted truck waiting on me... and weather threatening...

The rest of the story'll have to wait for tomorrow.
Brian

1979-2013 ... Been a While... Learning to Treasure the Bits and Pieces...

34 years today... and still ticking... kind of like a roller coaster at times... but like the ride... it's a closed circuit... so it just keeps on clickin' along. ;)

Yesterday we went to collect a few jugs of water for camp... and ended up doing something between 5 and 6 miles of high country walking.

As pretty as the eastern Sierras are, that beauty is real often difficult to capture on "film".

Like yesterday, we were walking in what most might call dark timber. The trees were so thick it's hard to get any perspective to capture a decent photograph.

It's times like that you have to focus in on the smaller bits of the whole scene.

Pretty much the same as the Grand Canyon. It's just too much to put into one photograph, so you have to sort out the small bits you Can get your head around.

... and then try to find a way to record that small piece to remember the day with.

Often, that sort of country, like we walked through yesterday... is my preferred landscape. There's a feeling of safety... when shrouded by timber so thick you can't see thirty yards.

Don't get me wrong, open country, far country... stretches your soul. It feeds the hunger to travel to that far horizon... to see what lays beyond it...

But... the trade off is... out in that open country... you're exposed... there's no where to hide, no where to retreat... It's like you're committed with no going back. It can be intimidating. That's a feeling I had alone on a motorcycle on the Alaskan Highway, deep in the Yukon... Committed... No Going Back...

In heavy forest... where you can slip away unseen in seconds... there is an ethereal feeling of safety and seclusion.

It does my soul good to know that even in California... where your first thought is often the MILLIONS and MILLIONS of people crowded together in a huge megalopolis...

... that just a short run away... is deep forest where your soul can catch its breath... Secluded from the hordes and clamor.

So... we were headed back from getting water for camp and decided to check out a couple more of the Free NF campgrounds in the area, to see if they'd been opened up yet...

***now that's a paradox of sorts. The NF service allows most of its sites to be badly over priced... and then has a gob of actually sweet camps in this eastern Sierra area that are FREE! ... it would be a whole lot better if they'd just find a happy medium... like say manage their camps Themselves, like the BLM, charge $8 for ALL of  'em... and send the Mgmt. Corporations packing? :) plus, they'd get a greater return that way to boot!***

Well, back to the Walk... So... We ended up 4 wheeling up Deadman Road... to a point where the road narrowed such that a Polaris Razor might be comfortable on it... but not an 8' broad, wide butted Dodge flatbed; so we got out to make a short walk...

You walk a short ways and say; "Let's see what's around the next turn"

The short walk becomes a mile out... two... and a bit... and ends up a four or five mile circle.

The forest absorbs the turmoil in your head... your breathing slows... a strange feeling of serenity and belonging seeps into that space behind your eyes where thoughts tumble without being put into words.

Should a man be sad that it took him so many decades to find the "place" in this life where he belongs?

Or should he just thank his lucky stars that the life he's had... has taught him to treasure so dearly all the shining bits and pieces?

To not regret the crushing sorrows, and shattering fears? ... but to acknowledge that it was those moments that create the contrast that makes his todays so clear in their treasure.

Like the forest itself...

... parts of it are bent, broken, burned and shattered... but it struggles on...

... and in amongst all that... is new and shining life.

Remember the old saying... "you can't see the forest for the trees?"

We've been moving around great areas here... obsidian domes , pumice mines...

There are great areas here that from ground level look only like huge areas where mining tore things to hell and then the people who did it... left...

I'd wondered how could there be a big enough market for obsidian to justify such a mining effort.

The places look like the ugly scars of mine tailings dumps as you pass by...

*View from ground level*

There must be a half dozen of 'em in the area...

DOH!

Yesterday, while trying to figure out just how far we'd actually walked (left the phone and its tracking app in the truck... doh!)...

Heidi pulled up a google earth pic that revealed the volcanic truth to us!



View Larger Map

We were driving along that lil' dirt track along top edge of what is actually a volcanic crater... and I'm thinking it's an old mining waste dump! ... DOH!

The point is... stop and look around... There's often a lot that you're missing with too casual a glance.

Also found along the way...

A fire pit in a campground...

...built by one of those camping there...

*Buck... at the headwaters of Glass Creek and the Owens River*

Just treasuring the bits and pieces... "a glass of buttermilk, a soft bed"... following the wisdom of my Ol' buddy Gus. ;)

So... today I gotta get rolling... heading off for an Anniversary breakfast and then some ghost town site seeing... and likely an Anniversary lunch too... if I can find a drunk to roll! ;)

Another Day in the Sun
Brian