When I was young, I wanted to be a cowboy. Well, specifically, I wanted to be Lucky Luke (always with the realistic career ambitions).
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For people outside the Euro countries where Lucky Luke was insanely popular, he is a lone cowboy that rides from town to town with his horse Dolly, an independent chaser of bad guys/enforcer of justice who draws his gun faster than his own shadow and found himself in pretty hilarious, well-written, action-filled adventures all the time. I’m not admitting I still occasionally read it or anything, except I totally do because it holds up and it’s great.
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I bring this up in order to convey how much the Old West captured my imagination as a child. That’s why when I found out about the existence of #Bodie, the best preserved ghost town from the 1800s in The entire United States, I knew I had to visit.
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High up in the windy central California mountains, Bodie boomed because of gold mining, became infamous for its lawlessness and the riches some of its luckiest residents acquired (evident in the, for the time, opulent furniture left behind in a select few houses), then quickly collapsed once the gold ran out.
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At an elevation of over 8,000 feet, with no wood or water nearby, unprotected from winds, winter cold, and blazing summer heat, there was simply no reason to stay once the mining ended.
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If you visit today, you get an amazing glimpse into one of the most legendary eras of US history, how people actually lived and worked, and the surprising diversity of the West’s residents at the time. Even if history and the Old West is not your thing, trust me, it is definitely worth a trip!
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