Day 7 - Bodie to Bishop

A day starting with a long conversation moves to an abandoned mining town and ends with an involuntary jump in a national park

Our accommodation in Bridgeport, was in the motel style and we walked out of our room directly into a quadrangle area in which each of the guests' cars were parked in front of their rooms. An elderly gentleman was just in front of me loading fishing equipment into his sizeable vehicle. We exchanged a "Good morning", and he then began a monologue about the quality of the fishing in the area, how long and frequently he has been coming to Bridgeport, a description of the beauty of the surrounding countryside and highlights of the area. 

At some point I must have been able to interject as he recognised my non-American accent - and this time correctly unlike the lady at Bear Lake - and another diatribe began concerning his military career during which he had served in Korea and Vietnam (where he had been shot in the knee - "But it ain't so bad now") and was based in England for a period (Cambridgeshire) and also in Germany, which he hated and found the people unfriendly. While stationed in England he bought several cars and used to race them. Queue a draw for breath and another verbal assault begins in which he gave me a list of the various cars he had owned, the competitions he had driven in and how he had fared against the opposition with full descriptions of the vehicles, engine types, cylinders and sizes and any special features he had cunningly obtained or his rivals had with which he had triumphed over them or vice versa. Eventually and somehow, I managed to bid him farewell and returned to our room to get our suitcases and get on our way.

I was just completing the loading of our car when my new best friend appears again and asks me why I am in the country? I explain that I am taking Adam to university and that we are having a few days together exploring the area before his course starts. Then begins the epilogue where he tells me how important family is and what Adam and I are doing is very special followed by lengthy descriptions of his son and daughter, their careers, ages and where they now reside and then on to his grandchildren, their characteristics and his hopes for their futures. I thank him for his kind words and manage to escape into our car and leave with a cheery wave sincerely hoping we are safe from further conversation behind glass. Luckily we are and drive the short distance into town, although I nervously look in the rear view mirror in case my acquaintance has forgotten to tell me about another aspect of his life and is now following us down the road.

Bridgeport would probably in UK terms be seen as a large village or very small town but, as we had observed the night before, strangely it had an impressive white-fronted courthouse that any John Grisham novel could seemingly have reached its culmination within. Next to it was a disused jail with an open door and sign declaring that it had last incarcerated someone during the 1960's. We walked in and surveyed the abandoned scene. Each of the cells had a metal-framed bed with thin mattress, toilet and sink - and a lot of dust and other accumulated debris from sixty years of abandonment.

We stepped out into the morning sunshine and a policeman appeared from a gate between the adjoining building which I then noticed was the police station. "What do you think of our little old jail?", he cheerily asked. I replied that I was grateful I was not having to stay in it. Given my first conversation of the day with a local, I did register a slight concern at that point that another lengthy one-sided verbal exchange was about to start. Thankfully he proceeded to give us a short and interesting historic resumé of the building including that the wife of the Bridgeport police chief used to cook and deliver the meals for the prisoners. We continued on our walk spotting the 'fancy' restaurant that we had rejected the previous evening and wondered how calm and uneventful our dining experience might have been. 

Back in the car, we moved on to Bodie an abandoned gold and silver mining town. It became a focus for prospectors during the late 1850s following a gold find by W S Bodey - after whom the town was named - although not spelt correctly as you probably noticed. Sadly, Bodey died the year after when caught in a blizzard and he did not see his initial discovery turn those modest beginnings into a wild west boomtown around fifteen years later when a very significant gold seam was uncovered. Over the next three years or so Bodie swelled with an estimated population of 7,000-10,000, some 2000 buildings (including 65 saloons) together with a reputation for bar brawls, gun fights and stagecoach holdups that many cowboy movies have drawn on ever since. However, as the guidebook reminded us, the dominant sound heard in the town all day and every day, was of the nine stamp mills that crushed the mine extractions in the hope of finding further precious metal.

Bodie's boom was short lived, and people moved on to other mining areas and their promises of riches from around 1880 onwards until the town was finally abandoned during the Second World War. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and placed in a state of 'arrested decay' meaning that the mainly wooden buildings are preserved and made safe on the outside but left internally as they were when the last residents departed.

As you can probably imagine, it now offers a fascinating, somewhat eerie and literal window into history as you peer through the glass of a home or school or shop. Although under very heavy layers of dust, you can easily imagine the lives of the people from the meagre possessions left behind, maths questions still chalked on the classroom blackboard and even a part-made coffin propped against the wall in the mortuary. 

We left for our second look at Yosemite national park and passed through the very small town of Lee Vining where we stopped for lunch. We plumped for Nicely's (that's the owner's family name not a misspelling of how the food will be) for today's American diner experience and were served with ample portions of fresh and tasty fare. By the payment area, I noticed a couple of racks of postcards and maps and went over to explore before our food arrived. On the wall was a display of Nicely's branded clothing that would have rivalled the equivalent merchandise stall at an Ed Sheeran or Adele concert. By the time my meal was finished my mind was made up; I could therefore say that my dining experience was so good I bought the T shirt.

We moved on to the eastern side of Yosemite intent on exploring a 10,000 feet high trail. The weather was becoming noticeably cloudier and cooler and there was a threat of rain in the air. This had become a light drizzle by the time we arrived and had donned our walking shoes and backpacks. Thirty minutes into the footpath and it was now raining heavily, and rumbles of thunder were being heard in the distance. We decided to wait under some large conifers and from there determine if the rain would pass. Suddenly I saw and, in some way, felt an enormous flash of intense white light next to me with a giant boom of shuddering thunder around a second or so later. Adam, observing from the safety of another tree, told me that I had jumped of which I have no recollection.

Quoting from the old saying that this experience could never happen again to me, Adam found his moment to reference another fun USA fact; apparently a US park ranger called Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning seven times in his career. It would be nice to relay that, after all that good fortune (or bad luck dependent or your optimism or pessimism quotient), Roy died peaceably in his bed but he ended his life by committing suicide at the age of 71 around six years after the last lightning bolt hit him. Allegedly he ended his life because of unrequited love. There are probably many men that might tell you that is a force stronger than the worst that Mother Nature can throw at you.

With no possibility that the rain would end, although the subsequent noises of thunder were immediately much further away, we abandoned the trek and returned to the car.

Our hotel that night was in Bishop. Thankfully that was uneventful as was our meal at the Whiskey Creek restaurant where I selected the shrimp salad. And this once again proved that everything is big in America - or maybe they just name things differently - as my 'shrimp' dish contained shellfish the size of Mediterranean prawns.