If you're in the area around Mono Lake / US 395, you simply MUST make time to stop here. I went because it "sounded cool", but discovered that it was much more interesting than I could have imagined. It has captured my interest and imagination.

Bodie was a boom town whose population peaked in the late 1880s. It had its own irrigation, was the site of the first transmitted electrical power (13 miles!) and it was not uncommon for the bad men of Bodie to kill off one of their own. It was pretty normal for someone to be killed almost daily here.

That said, the town was very active when mining was active, it slowly declined until the last permanent residents left in the 1940s. Now it's a California State Park, and one of the best things I've seen.