We went to a few ghost towns, or as we called them in front of Erik, "really really old towns where no one lives anymore", he hated the term ghost town. It was snowy conditions on our trip, and we couldn't really enjoy the outdoors like we had planned so what do you do, in our case drive to see some old ghost towns. The kids are happy because they can run around and Carl and I find them fascinating.
The most interesting fact about visiting these ghost towns is Erik's reaction. It was completely unanticipated, but makes perfect sense for a three year old. He said it really bothered him that there were a bunch of old buildings and no one lived in them anymore. He just didn't like that. Basically the definition of a ghost town.
The first one we visited was Bodie, which is a tourist attraction for the area. At one point 8,000 people lived in Bodie and you wonder "what the heck" as you drive a long windy dirt road, up mountain, in the middle of nowhere. Then you think that is why no one lives here anymore.
Bodie was an old mining town and if you know your California history, gold mining was HUGE in the 1850s which is right around when this town was established. I think the last residence left in the 1950s so this little town has a 100 year history.
Its really hard to look around and see all the details when you have two small kids who are complaining about the cold and wind. So I just snapped a few pictures, looked in a few windows and we were done in an hour. Its a gorgeous location and definitely worth a visit if you have the smallest interest in ghost towns.
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| The road to Bodie |
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| Bodie |
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| Old Mining Equipment |
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| Bank Vault |
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| The creek |
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| Bodie |
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| School House |
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| A Residence |
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| A Building |
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| Stores |
The next day we had planned to take a nature walk, but the brisk wind and 30 degree temps stopped us before we could even pay for parking. Carl and I made a quick decision to drive to Bridgeport and check it out. On the way Carl read about an old ghost town called Masonic so again we drove up a really long, SNOWY road, up the mountain in the middle of the nowhere to what we thought was Masonic. We later found out that it was just a mine and the actual town was a bit farther down the road, but it was snowing pretty bad and the kids were napping so we didn't want look much farther. Here are pictures of what we thought was Masonic, but are just an old abandoned mine. Yet another piece of California gold rush history.
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