Attempt #2 to upload photos from this cell service black hole. A collection of Tuesday photos including the ghost town at Bodie, the park and boardwalk along Mono Lake, and the snowcovered roads that started our day.

Ghost Town

(Written Tuesday, but no service to post.)

This morning we woke up on the beautiful shore of Topaz Lake and had some coffee in the morning calm. After a bit, we started the preparations. George set about tightening his steering rack a bit (to reduce play in the steerage). I swapped out my air filter, in hopes that my lack of highway power was perhaps an easy solution.

While I wasn’t looking, Evan, who decided I was gloating too much about not having gotten stuck yesterday, disconnected my primary ignition coil (would produce a similar effect to not having any gas). Then he asked if we could take the 4Runner for a test drive so he could feel what it’s like, since he thinks my complaining is just because I drive like a grandpa. We got in, he turned the keys, and there was much cranking but no start, and my heart sank. I didn’t want to be having a “can’t start my car” level issue on Day 2. He let me sweat for a moment before he told me what he’d done. As I reconnected it, I reminded him that I saved him twice yesterday, and he considered that further gloating.

We packed up and headed out for Bridgeport to get gas and lunch. Regular is $4.09 in that town. I don’t even want to know how much Evan had to pay the Premium that princess Rover requires. Lunch, however, was faaantastic. Just a little burger joint with no indoor seating. Best fries and onion rings just about anywhere; the burger, salmon burger, and fried fish all earned high marks.

Our next stop was Bodie, an old abandoned mining town that has been converted into a state park about ten miles away. There’s an overland trail to access it, so we went that way. That was a lot of fun! There was snow, but it didn’t require much digging this time. We all got to have “proud papa” moments about our cars as we tackled a pretty long snowbank. But within about three miles of Bodie, we found a really long snowbank that we likely wouldn’t be able to cross. We walked past it to see what lay ahead and there was a snowdrift the size of a house on the other side.

Clearly, we’d yet again reached an impasse and would have to turn around. But just for fun, we each took a crack at the first snowbank because George wanted to know how far he could have made it. Fifteen feet, it turns out, of about one hundred. Then Evan wanted to try, and he got maybe twenty-five. Not to be out-done, of course, I started in. I struggled to get going in the snow, but then I let off the gas, still in first and 4-Low, and Red started creeping along over the snow, showing me how it’s really done. I made it at least thirty feet before George screamed over the radio, “You insufferable bastard!” at which point I reversed back out knowing that no one would want to help me because I won so much. (Telling you this will come at the expense of another engine component, but I want it noted, in case I don’t make it back.)

Having had a ton of fun, we headed back to the highway and headed over to Bodie by road. It was much larger than I expected it to be. There were abandoned houses, businesses, offices, factories, even a mine. We walked around for a couple hours and poked in all the places. There were very few other park guests there. We did note a couple California State Parks employees fixing things. … Yes, fixing … the ghost town … sorta encroaches on the point a bit, but I know they wanted to keep things safe.

We took the overland trail out of Bodie to continue our originally planned route, meaning that we only lost a couple miles of it overall. It was stunning. A dirt road down a mountain pass with a view of mountains and lakes and dramatic clouds the whole time, all the way down.

At the bottom of road, we stopped at a park on Mono Lake. The lake apparently was a source of water for Los Angeles, which dropped its level forty feet in twenty years when it was sourced in the 1940s. There was a boardwalk over the marsh and a playground where we took turns on the swings.

After that, it was a rural highway run over to Bishop for dinner and up into Big Pine for our “cabin in the woods” evening. Yet again, we’ve arrived in total darkness, but I can hear waterfalls and a fast moving river right outside.

(@TODO Reset post date, Tuesday 11pm)

Something has gone horribly wrong. This is the only restaurant open in this town at the early hour of 8pm… And it’s in the casino-hotel we’re staying in.

You know, my steering has tightened up quite a bit. Now that I’ve tightened it. There’s a weird noise though, but I think there’s just my CV joint going out.

George.