At last the long days & late nights caught up with me and I had to be woken up this morning, RK tried the old "I'll have a shower" routine, but that failed, eventually jumping up & down pretending to pack bags did the trick...

Now you're going to get bored with this information, but the weather & scenery today could not have been better, the drive to Virginia City took us up a newly surfaced road over some mountains, the views were awesome causing quite a number of pull over photo opportunities.. they've also started trailing the Virginia City attractions, the largest of which seems to be "The Suicide Table"
 

Big ol' scenery

See the suicide table..

About 30 mins from Virginia City there was a loud BANG! from the back of the car.. yes folks, the Ruffle-o-meter<tm> had finally reached its design limit.. we didn't see a height marker but it eventually went at about 8000 feet.. thank god it did because we were getting peckish & so we ate the contents post haste.

We'd both been to Virginia City before but things have changed.. the town is a classic Western goldrush town, they have a boardwalk, a cemetary & more tourist crap than anyone needs.. we started in the cemetary, the first time I came here it was 100% original & in pretty bad shape, they've been tidying it up and renovating some of the graves, I guess this is nice for the families of the dead but it's sucky for the photo hungry tourist, a lot of the old wooden grave markers & fences have been replaced with modern materials..
 
 

Into the town proper we went, the first attraction we visited was the Prostitute museum, it's named after the cities most famous prostitute, tells her story & has lots of old sexual aids/potions, the massive industrial strength vibrators bring a tear to the eye.. altho I was pleased to see the women on the packaging using the machinery on their necks ..nothing changes. Quite what the jar of dessicated ovaries was for god only knows.. The prostitute museum had less "stuff" in it than previous visits, & they seem to have added a wedding chapel next door.. go figure.. my new favorite VC museum is the gambling museum, they have a very cool collection of old one armed bandits & gambling ephemera, well worth the $1 admission charge. the bar containing the Suicide Table itself has changed from a quiet bar with a few slot machines into a proto casino with much slot action & activity, all those signs on the way in must have done the trick.. The Suicide Table itself is just a card table that seems to bring bankruptcy & then suicide to anyone who owns it.. they have it tucked away a the back so you have to pass all the slots twice just to see it..
 
 

The whole main street of Virginia City is lined with tourist traps, most with a western theme, but why are the new age stores here?? Hippy crud, witchy crap, alien nonsense? I'm sure gnarled old prospectors loved nothing better than a rub down with some essential oils while they fingered their mood stones & discussed the possibility of life on other planets.. NOT. ...bloody new agers.

It was now dinner time, and when in the west, tradition demands we eat at least once at a Sonic Drive In, (they do a killer Cherry Lime soda..) we'd checked the phone book before leaving Reno & knew there was one in Carson City so we headed that way, a quick call on the mobile to the store  to find the actual location (good to see us putting technology to a proper use)  & we were in.. for those who've never seen a Sonic they are the the classic American drive in, you pull up to a stand, read the menu, push a button give your order & then a teenage hottie fetches the food **on roller skates**.. the tray clips on the window & you are transported into fatty heaven courtesy a burger & fries.. why -o- why we don't have stuff like this in the UK..

Following lunch we headed south on 395 towards Bodie, Bodie is a destination I've tried & failed to visit twice before, both times the road was closed due to snow, but today the weather was perfect & the road was open.. once again the scenery on the way was utterly awesome.. this week we've run the gamut from desert to scrubland thru coastal lush, mountains, forest, everything but today was something else entirely, in the distance mountains had snow on their peeks, the road winds & twists thru many elevations, hugs hills, cuts across plains, all under a perfect blue sky, with the top down on "The 'Stang" we were living the life.. Jellyfish on the CD player, wind in my hair, it was like a non threatening slightly fey version of "Two Lane Blacktop".. (A film)

Bodie is a ghost town, that was all I knew before we arrived, it's 10 miles off the highway, 7 miles on a paved road, 3 on a mud track.. the admission fee is $1.   I was not prepared for what we found.. Bodie has launched itself firmly into the top 3 of my list of favorite roadside attractions, ("House on the Rock" & "Graceland Too" being the other two for those new to these ramblings..)

A goldrush town in the late 19th century, Bodie had a population of 30,000 at its peak, it's been abandoned since 1942 and a national park since 1964, what separates this ghost town from others is that it looks like the people all just upped & left one day, there are still plates on tables, beds are made, and there has been very little vandalism, it isn't a tourist trap like Calico or completely eaten by the desert like Rhyolite, we only had two hours before it closed as we were expecting another Rhyolite, you could spend all day here & shoot 100's of photos, I flattened the battery on my digicam in an hour.. I can't wait to come here again & spend the whole day. Fantastic stuff.
 

The telegraph office	The gas station
The store	more store

From Bodie we went to Mono Lake, Mono is a lake that has had its depth reduced by a hundred feet or so leaving all sorts of weird stuff poking up from the bottom, it's like being on Mars, sunset was well under way by the time we got there so we had a quick look, & got back on the road looking for somewhere to stay tonight.

We want to visit Yosemite tomorrow so we've found a cute place to stay in a resort called "June Lake" our room is what would have been the set of the movie "The Brady Bunch go fly fishing" all 70's decor, an electric reclining chair (broken), L shaped leather couch, separate bedroom with 2 beds, one double, one single (We'll fight over who gets which later).. in summation: tacky.
 

The school

70's hell

Right, better get some kip, got some mountains to coo & aah over tomorrow..