Here they breathed. There they laughed for a while.
Here they walked. There they had many meetings, fear, happy stories.
Bodie is fabulous.
All those words ran through my mind as we kept going into the town.
After a long walk there our three cameras were not tired for a second. Our feet, eyes were not tired too.
There was dust, dirt, over-flowing. Our car was sleepy after a 10 miles long drive without signs. And don’t ask about the very next unpaved 3 miles. We and our car survived the trauma and dust. I had to wash all foot-wears, backpacks and had to get the car washed the very next day.
“What is bodie?” everyone asked us, the night before our trip.
It’s weird that human beings move forward and don’t look back, don’t search for residues that hide beneath dust. What was once so present now sits behind and is called “history“.
I’m a complete national-geographic-and-discovery-documentary fan. If I didn’t have certain goals and aspirations, I would have been in amazon forests now, with a camera, of course. I have watched so many documentaries on ghost towns, and Bodie stood out always.
Ghost towns were in my travel list for a long time. I have seen many old historical places with present quirks but never saw a completely abandoned town with history. Bodie is one of the most beautifully preserved ghost towns in whole America. And it’s photographer’s paradise. A place where you can photograph the past without riding the time machine. And if you’re lucky, you might be the only one hugging the history there.
By 1879, the population of Bodie was close to 7000. There were around 1100 buildings, stamp mills, bank, fire companies, rail road. By 1920, the population declined to 120. In 1962, Bodie became Bodie State Historic Park.
To read more about Bodie, click here.
Spread the words..
A Journey Called Life ... 
Wow! I’m sure you liked the town. Thank you, Debbie, for stopping by.
Really nice photos of Bodie. I was there in the late 80s with my film camera, now I want to find the negatives to scan.
Thank you, TIZ. 🙂 For now you can watch a documentary called abandoned america. 🙂
Beautiful pictures, Archita! Makes me want to go there. 🙂
Carry on dear, doing fine. My blessings.
So, make a trip in winter as well and present to us the other side of ‘relic town. Hehehehe…;)
Thanks Archita for your appreciation.
Thank you, Ree.
Ha ha, Thank you!
Thank you, Amit. 😀
Thank you, Indira, for reading and writing kind words for me. 🙂 I have got this only one life to cover the whole world!
Thank you, Itty, for reading and your kind words.
Thank you, Suyash, for your kind words. Nothing eerie sort of experience, this was summer, so the place was quite crowded. I heard in winter when the city is less crowded due to snow and bad road condition people find the place really ghost-ly! Your blog is beautiful, Suyash.
Cool. Its an incredible blog and loved the photos. Did you experience anything eerie in the town?
Thanks for visiting my blog. 🙂
Thanks for taking g us there with your pristine photography and oration.
Beautiful photographs and great commentary to go with it Archita. You are so lucky to have a chance to visit all these places.
very nice
Superb photographs! You should be on Nat Geo if you love capturing places like this.
Wow!!! That’s bodie! Thank you for showing us. Loved your golden words too.