Day 5 - Ghosts

I woke up about 2am and heard some interesting sounds. At first I thought it was a bear in the campground, rummaging around. I peeked in the direction of the sound and didn't see anything. It continued for awhile but didn't seem to be moving around and a couple times it sounded like human voices. I finally decided it must be a fellow camper snoring. I was talking with another camper today and he said he heard it too. He thinks it might have been deer, as he has heard them make similar sounds when they are rooting around for some snacks. The campground hosts said they haven't seen or heard a bear in the campground since about April.

When the sun woke me up, I laid in the tent for awhile till the sun was high enough up to start warming things up. Then I spread my still damp jeans over my motorcycle and propped my boots facing the sun in hopes they would dry a bit more before I put them on.

The jeans dried pretty quick, but I stayed in camp till after 9 by which time I either needed some air-conditioning or a cold beer. Luckily, the boots were dry and I headed out to find a ghost town called Bodie I had heard about.

It was a nice ride through some mountains to get there. Well, nice until I got to the last several miles which were unpaved. I don't mind dirt roads, but loose dirt, sand and gravel are not what my bike was built for and it handles somewhat like trying to hold on to a greased pig.

It was a picture-perfect day. Clear skies with big white fluffy clouds. I thought this was the schoolhouse with the bell on top, but this was actually the fire station.


Since there are no concessions for food or drinks there, and I was getting hungry, I decided to head out after looking around for about an hour or so. I knew it would take awhile to get back anyway, so when I saw there was a different route back, I decided to take it. This way had closer to 10 miles of dirt road, but there were areas of packed dirt which was easier to navigate, but still took me a while to get back to a paved road. I did stop a few times for pictures. One stop I made was a different view of Mono Lake than most that you can see. Such are the rewards for taking the road less traveled.

There are these neat white flowers that bloom everywhere along the side of the road. Did I mention the weather was great today?

Well, after lunch, I stopped to do a load of laundry and by the time that was done, the cloud bank I saw yesterday was starting to form again so I decided to stay close to camp. The rain almost completely missed me this time and I was able to light my fire and enjoy it without trying to dry my clothes out.

The sun is down and mosquitoes are starting to get annoying, so when I get the fire put out, it is off to bed. Another day is done.