Mono and Bodie

I am in the Mono Lake Basin for the weekend, meeting up with a group led by my friend Michael Ellis.  It is a perfect time of year, with fall settling in. Crisp days, cold nights and the aspen are starting to show their fall color. We spend the days getting an introduction of the region's natural history. Friday is a hike up Lundy Canyon, leading west into the Sierras, with streams and lakes peppered with beaver dams, and mountains above dusted with early snow.  Saturday is a hike up Black Point, a volcano that erupted under water during the last ice age and is now an exposed, desolate cinder covered mound with wonderful views. Two entirety different pieces of the puzzle that makes up the area.
After we say goodbye on Sunday, I plan to visit the gold mining ghost town of Bodie which is nearby to the  north and I discover that one of our group has great grandparents who lived in Bodie and are buried there.  I hope you visit their gravesite and Heidi asks if I could photograph the headstones to help identify a non family member who shares the family plot.
Access to Bodie is by one of two routes: ten miles of washboard gravel,  or paved road most of the way ending in three miles of really bad road.  I opt for washboard.  When I get here,  Bodie is exposed to a growing wind, and seems vulnerable under a moody sky.  I am thinking that someone who loves to photograph old doors will be cloud nine here.  There certainly is much to see, but here's the thing - it's a really sad place.  After a short while of wandering and peeking into windows at interrupted lives,  the place starts to get to me.  Schoolroom with books on desks, and lessons on the wall. Bedroom with faded wallpaper and a lonely sewing machine under the window.  Hotel with dusty pool table and potbelly stove that has been cold since the last manager left and locked the door behind him. I do have success in locating the headstones in the  cemetery but this does little to lighten my mood.  The family plot is well cared for but the majority of the cemetery is disheveled and overgrown. It is time to leave.  I leave by the really bad road and turn on the radio for company but a soul searching Pink Floyd song doesn't help my mood either. I am finally uplifted when I come across a large flock of sheep, luminous in the late afternoon sun, complete with fluffy white sheepdog and young shepherd sitting on a folding chair.