Dave McCoy Photography

Here is the second group of pictures from our July, 2007 Bodie adventure.

The way the wind blows is the way the house wanted to go, but the pole held it up. It’s still leaning a little bit. 

The power went all different directions from here. It was in Bodie that long-distance transmission of electricity was first used successfully.  This is the old California construction. What do you think of our 5-gallon can sheeting? Those are 5-gallon cans cut and tacked on, not stapled.  The wind whistled louder inside the house than it did outside in the open. Here is a drawing of one of the old wagons like the one in the last group of Bodie photos. It wasn’t taken by a box camera, I don’t think. But it’s somebody’s super artwork. It could have made many trips to San Francisco and back. That’s your 18-wheeler of yesterday.  Here are some from the graveyard. Rosa May was a prostitute, so was not allowed to be buried in the proper cemetery. Her grave is just next to the others.  This is a tribute to Waterman Bodey, who first found gold near the town.  Look the years on the tombstones. These people didn’t live long. Bodie was in working condition until the 1950′s, so there are many generations buried here.
This is where the passenger and oar cars lowered into the mines. There were different levels it could descend to and miners could get off at each level to dig. They’d find the veins that ran through the hills and high graded.  After we visited Bodie, we headed northeast and ran into these old buildings. These relics were on the highway between Bodie and Aurora.  This will give an idea of where we were. 

We promised some Bodie pictures last week, so here they are.

These are from a trip we made there in July, 2007. We trailered the Rhinos to the poleline road, and passed the goat camp on the way up. We piled into three Rhinos and headed out.

The ranger welcomed us in and led us to the parking lot. From there, we strolled around the park shooting pictures, instead of sixguns. We ended the day with a lot of great photos, so this is part 1 of 2.

Hopefully it feels like you were there with us. Here we go.

-Dave

Here is the approach into Bodie.

This is the old Methodist Church. It weathered many storms and is still standing.

This will be here for many days more.

We got gas for our mule-and-horse-powered wagons.

This is the mill where they refined the gold from the ore. They generated electricity for all the power to run the mill and the town. This was the first place in the country where electricity could be transmitted over long distances. 

I think this would be cool living in the winter. 

From up above Bodie, you can look down onto the north side of Mono Lake, and across to June Mountain and Mammoth Mountain.