For years I have been told, "You gotta go to Bodie." I have now been to Bodie! So have Tom and Diane. Bodie is a ghost town that receives about 200,000 visitors annually. It is an historic state park, established as such in 1962. But, its history goes back much further than that. In 1876 it became a boom town following the discovery of gold and at one time had several thousand residents. Today, Bodie is preserved in a state of arrested decay. There are about 110 structures still in the town including one of many once operational gold mills. For a small fee, visitors can roam the streets, peek into windows and in a couple of homes can even walk into a room or two. Room interiors have remained as they were left, which certainly adds to the description of decay. No attempt has been made to clean them up or even organize them as they might have been used by their residents. There are many resources on the internet that tell more of Bodie's history and I encourage you to check some of them out.
Gulf Fritillary
The Gulf fritillary or passion butterfly (Agraulis vanillae) is a bright orange longwing butterfly most commonly found in southern areas of the United States. The butterfly is attracted to Lantana flowers for nectar and Passion flower vines for depositing their eggs. The Pardoll's put a Passion flower vine on their patio and they carefully monitor and photograph the butterfly's life cycle. The vine is eaten down to the bare earth but returns to full foliage each season to host another cycle of life for these butterflies.
The Ancients - Bristlecones
The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is home to the oldest trees in the world, bristlecone pines. Some of these living trees exceed 4000 years of age and exhibit spectacular growth forms of twisted and beautifully colored wood. The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is a protected area high in the White Mountains in Inyo County located in eastern California. These trees grow between 9,800 and 11,000 fest above sea level in alpine conditions. There are two trails. We took the shorter Discovery Trail which is one mile in length. As you can tell from the images, we were threatened with rain the whole time and it was very cold and windy.