Reby's Weight Loss and Breast Cancer Journey: Bodie and Mono Lake

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Bodie and Mono Lake

Spectacular!

Fantastic!

Amazing!

Unique!

There are just so many words that describe Bodie and Mono Lake.

We had a wonderful, long, dusty, great day. We started by driving over the Sonora Pass in the Sierra mountains. It was breath-taking. After coming down the other side, we went to Bodie. The last three miles are an incredibly bumpy dirty road. I'm kind of glad it was in a rental car! LOL!

We got the booklet that shows 70 buildings or locations and what they were. In two and a half hours, including a picnic lunch by the car, we did almost all of them. We all decided not to do about 10 of them that went up a spur, but they were just more residential houses, similar to the first 20 items on the map.

Bodie was named for Waterman S. Body (aka William S. Bodey) who discovered gold there in 1859. As mining along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada declined, prospectors crossed to the eastern slope. They found Virginia City and the Comstock Lode, which started a rush to the surrounding high desert country. By 1879 Bodie had grown to about 10,000 and became known for its wickedness, badmen, and "the worst climate out of doors." Killings occurred everyday. By 1881 it was already starting to decline, and by 1886 the population was only about 1500. The town briefly increased in the 1890s when they discovered the cyanide process for gold and electricity as a source of cheap power. Still in 1932 a fire destroyed all but 10 per cent of the town. By the 1940s there was nobody left.

Now it is a California State Park and left in a state of "arrested decay." Nothing is being changed or improved. It is what it is. Mark loved going there. Thanks go out to Marc Gaertner for telling Eric to tell us about it.

Then we drove to Mono Lake. It's 65 square miles, but smaller than it used to be. In the early 1940s LA started draining it for water. The level dropped 45 feet in about as many years. Now there is a law that stopped the drainage and the lake is recovering, SLOWLY. The goal is to restore it to the level from 1962. I hope it works. It's an important habitat for many animals.

The lake is similar to the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Dead Sea in Israel. It has no outlet, so the mountain creeks flow in and evaporation is the only outlet. Well, up until LA started helping itself to the water. Underneath are freshwater springs that bubble up and interact with the alkaline water. This forms limestone towers called tufas. Now that the water level has shrunk, the tufas are out of the water and form a unique and eerie landscape. We walked all around them, marveling at their strangeness. We also watched the sea gulls eat the alkali flies and brine shrimp that are all over in abundance. The shrimp are the only life form in the lake.

We enjoyed our walks, but my feet started hurting! LOL! We had dinner back in Bridgeport at the Virginia Creek Settlement, an Italian restaurant that was just excellent. We all went to bed before 10 p.m., totally exhausted!

Today we are crossing the famous Tioga Pass in Yosemite. It will be another long day of driving and hiking. We should return to Evey's house between 10 and 11 p.m. I'd best get ready and head out.

Enjoy some pictures from Bodie and Mono Lake.