Today we drove from Carson City to
Bishop, CA. En route we stopped at Lake Tahoe, Bodie Historic State
Park and Lake Mono.
Immediately after leaving the hotel
this morning we drove through downtown Carson City and would never
have imagined that we were in the capital of Nevada. There is
absolutely nothing pretentious about the town at all! From there we
started the ascent over a range of the Sierras to get to Lake Tahoe
which has a beautiful setting surrounded by a ring of mountains. Lake
Tahoe has 83 streams that drain into it and only one that drains out,
but its water never reaches the ocean! It is 1600 ft deep and at its
deepest part is 90 ft below the level of Carson City! It's a massive
lake and if its waters were allowed to cover the state of California,
the state would be under 14” of water.
From there we had decided to visit
Bodie Ghost Town but when we turned off for the park it said that
there was a 2 mile dirt road to get there, so we turned around and
then drove on towards Lake Mono where we stopped at an overlook.
There we saw something about Bodie and looked at each other and said
we'd better go back. Well the drive over the dirt road was pretty
hairy, but when we crested the final rise and saw the town we were
blown away!
The town of Bodie rose to prominence
with the decline of mining along the western slope of the Sierra
Nevada. Miners crossed over the eastern slopes and after the
discovery of gold at Virginia City, NV started a wild rush to the
high desert country. By 1879 Bodie boasted a population of about
10,000 and was second to none for wickedness, badmen, and “the
worst climate out of doors.” One little girl, whose family was
taking her to Bodie ,wrote in her diary: “Goodbye God, I'm going to
Bodie.” The town had 65 saloons!!! The reverend F.M. Warrington saw
Bodie in 1881 as “a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and
passion.”
About 5% of the buildings remain today,
if ever you find yourselves close to here it's well worth a visit!
Back at the Lake Mono overlook we took
a few pictures of the lake. Lake Mono formed about 760,000 years ago
and has no outlet and consequently it has very high salt content.
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