The fire of 1892 started in his wife's restaurant. Next, we have William Hick of Cornwall, England. He died on Nov. 24, 1901 at 56 years of age.
Hick died of punctured lung sustained in a mining accident. At the time of his death, he was one of the oldest miners.
You can read the whole marker if you would like. Double click the picture to make it bigger.
A couple of points before I end this one. I say two things on the video you will see that need some clarification. This is part of the problem of trying to explain details in a video that is only a few minutes long.
The first one is a minor point in that I say that Bodey found the "mines" here. While he is credited with this I probably should not have used the word "mines". I think most people will get the idea that I was just saying he and the rest found the ore minerals here. A person might think of a mine as a shaft or a cave, but that did not develop until later. Not a big deal, but I wanted to say something about this.
Second, I say something about them finding this area in 1859, but it was not until the late 1870's that the town fully developed and they were actively mining it. This is true, but again this is the price I pay trying to cover detailed history in just a few seconds on video. There were people that did come back to what would become the town of Bodie to prospect, but it was not one of the hotspots at the time for mining. Both Aurora and Virginia City had the priority over this area. The key was you had to have sponsorship and people investing in mining to get anything going. Keep in mind the elevation of the area and the terrible winters the place has. It is still not uncommon for modern newspapers to show Bodie as the coldest place in California on any given day in the weather section. So, when people started to invest that is when the boom started in the 1870's.
Third, E. S. Taylor did suffer over the loss of his friend. A few years later he too died a tragic death at the hands of Paiutes.
Finally, why is the town called Bodie while named after Bodey? The common story is that the name had different phonetic spellings. Eventually, Bodie was used and it stuck.
In the picture below we are looking just to the left of the above picture. That is the morgue next to the cemetery. You can see one gravesite right next to it that we will get to. There is also one gravesite on the hill just to the right of the morgue. I am not going to discuss that one other than to say that it is the gravesite of Warren Loose (Aug. 6, 1848-Aug. 19, 1917). He became a part owner and manager of the Syndicate Mine. He had an issue with Leland Stanford (a former govenor at the time) over a race horse he sold him. Months later the race horse gave birth to a colt. Loose sued Stanford over the issue not knowing at the time of sale he sold a horse that was going to eventually give birth a baby colt. Loose ended up losing on that one. You can double click the picture to see that grave in the distance if you like. BTW, the book you might see in libraries or listed online, Bodie Bonanza, was written by his son.
The next picture is not out here at this morgue near the cemetery. It is inside the morgue in town. This is one of those pictures taken through the window in town. Like I said earlier, I have pictures of this taken way back. It is a common picture one might see of this casket. I just thought I would add it here.
In the next few blogs I will cover a few of the gravesites.
Even more funny was that I had a presentation to give about an hour after the Nasa press conference where a small part of it would be about Mono Lake. The people I was presenting to had not heard anything about the new find so I was able to say a little of what I knew about this. Then, when it was over I was kicking myself for not having my new Clint Eastwood "Return to Lago" blogs/videos up yet...give me another month or two.
Here is what I got out of this. Life as we know it is carbon based that has six essential ingredients: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, carbon, and phosphorus. Mono Lake, which has three times the amount of salt than the ocean, is rich in phosphorus and arsenic. They found microbes that live in this environment at Mono Lake. They took them to a lab and found that by taking away some of the phosphorus the microbes were able to grow with arsenic instead. Therefore, life is more complicated than we thought because it appears that the conditions life can exist in is bigger than originally thought.
The research is impressive. Maybe not as dramatic as the popular media and some of what I have seen written online, but still very cool and I eagerly away to see where this leads. Can these microbes live completely without phosophorus? What mechanism(s) in their machinery allow them to do this? I noticed that NYU chemist, Robert Shapiro, had these to say in one of the articles I will list below:
"This is an interesting curiosity, a novel discovery but not a paradigm-breaking one," said New York University chemist Robert Shapiro, an authority on DNA and the origin of life who was not involved in the project. "It is a cousin of known living things that has some peculiar habits."
Shapiro is one of the respected skeptics to this type of research that I have read in the past. In any case, I will let the scientists clash with each other on this one.
Of course, I probably would not be bringing any of this up had it not been for Mono Lake. If you have read this blog for any amount of time then you know this lake comes up once in while. It is really wild place. I cannot say I enjoy being there during the heat of the day during the summer. However, I do not think I ever showed the time the wind was REALLY BAD one day I was nearby. As I remember, this was a few years back. In fact, it was a day that I intended to do the Eastwood videos, but had to come back on another day. The wind was causing all sorts of waves and water in the air.
As I remember, there was a man who died on this day because he was caught with his kayak at there. Yeah, once the winds come up, you get out of there.
Back to the new find for moment as I wrap this up. I am curious how the Mono Lake group is going to try to use this to their advantage. As one who has property nearby I get the advertisements and "send us money" routine. Not that is a bad thing because everyone does that, especially during these economic times. However, sometimes I see them as totally unrealistic about things: their disappointment with proposition 21. Believe me, they and the rest of the Sierra gets enough money out of me, my relatives, and friends.
This is Gem Lake. It does live up to its name. This was the goal, but you can continue through behind the lake and meet up with other trails near Yosemite. To the left of me was the dam seen from the last blog way down below. This is where the tram ends.
We did go around part of the lake just to check it out. I liked the slight glow effect the reflection gives here, at least that is something like what you would get if you added one of the effects in Adobe Photoshop or Sony Vegas. This was all nature though. 
This is looking back at the dam after walking around part of the lake.
We did continue around much more of the lake, but we decided to turn around since it did not seem like we would encounter anything more than what we already saw without going much deeper on the trail. This is another one where we were on a time schedule. There are a few smaller lakes back there and other trails to meet up with that originate in Yosemite and Agnew Meadows (outside Mammoth, near the Devils Postpile).
You will notice the tram tracks continue, there is a power company shed, and there is a dam below.
Up higher one can see another dam. That is where our final destination was for this one. The tram track runs beside the lake and continues up beyond the lake to where that dam is.
This is looking back down from where I was in the past three pictures.
At this point it is just a case of turning around and the quest for the gem was over. I will wrap this one up tomorrow.
Years ago I had a friend that saw the tramway from below and was always curious about it. From what he saw he wanted to climb along it and see where it went. That was way down below and it would have been futile based on how high this is. There is a sign that warns you about crossing here. This is all part of the So. Cal Edison Company. This track goes way back to where I ended the hike.
I crossed over and turned to look down into the June Lake community area. This is about the point I took the video from two blogs back.
Looking back over to Silver Lake.
After I did this hike I told my friend about what was up with the tracks he saw all those years ago. I have since been told by one of my relatives the he knew a person that worked here. He said that taking the tram up back here was a harrowing experience. It seems cool to avoid the hike if you want to fish back there, but it looks like the angle of ascent is really intense.and (the whole hike in the following)
Once passed some of the homes, not too far from the trailhead, the trail rises some. SR 158, the June Lake Loop, runs right by the trail at this point. You can see part of Silver Lake.
I have seen photographers at Silver Lake early in the morning close to where we started while driving through in the past. On those days they are trying to capture the mist look it can have in the morning. As I got higher I looked back to where I started and got to see more of Silver Lake.
In the above picture, if you just continue looking to the right and just past the lake you get the following. An assortment of autumn:
Looking up ahead I could see a waterfall to the left, but a man made structure in the middle.
What is interesting about this hike is you cross into Ansel Adams Wilderness right as you start going uphill; it is not too far ahead of picture #2 above. However, of all the Eastern Sierra hikes I have done, this is the one that had many man made structures on the way that are still used. In the next blog I will mention more about this.
This was in the first Zorro video I did, but this is the first picture I have shown of it. You can see the pepper tree in the episode and here where I "framed" it.
The padre tells Paladin that he wants him to find the statue that was lost and return it. That is what the episode ends up being about.
I just happened to have a picture taken in this direction. I only took a few pictures in this church of what I expected to use for the Zorro blogs. I did not take very many pictures of the sides of the church.
The statue in the middle is the same one that you see in the episode. The one on the left is different; this one is not carrying a baby. The one on the right is NOT the one Paladin gets in the episode.
You can see the fountain is still there.
Paladin then procedes into the cemetery to speak with the padre. This is where I had wished I had seen this episode before visiting the mission. It is another case of where watching another tv show or movie helps figure out the location. Had I seen this episode before I visited I would have been a little more certain while doing the video there for Zorro. As you can see the cemetery had a lot more tree cover and bushes covering up the area.
I used this picture a few blogs back and am more convinced after watching this episode that it was that door Zorro went through. This is about the midway point between the two doors.
Paladin then talks to the padre and we get the other direction.
This would be the other direction. I am a lot further down, but you should be able to see where they where they were. It is a little beyond the midway point from what I can tell. 
One more of these tomorrow and I am done with this mission. Until then...
Last time I mentioned that there is probably a gargoyle in this direction right below me. If that is the case then Paladin was filling up his hat right below me here. Again, I am going to have to go back someday and figure this out since I did not go there with this episode in mind. What I think is happening in the above picture is they are just beyond the little bridgeway you see in middle of my picture. It looks like you see a some of the brick bridge in the tv episode at the bottom of the picture. When I zoomed into my picture past the bridge it seemed to match up a little better with the two overhang structures you see see above.
Paladin then takes the young man away on horseback quickly as the group of men try to run after them.
This archway is the entrance to the Lavenderia. I am off to the side a bit.
So, like I have been saying in these last two blogs, I think I have the right ideas here to go back and fine-tune this at a later time. It is not a high priority in my list of things, but I will come back to these past two blogs and redo it with new pictures when the time comes.
This is part of the Lavenderia or the open air laundry. In the old days, the ladies would come down here and wash their clothes in the water diverted from the river.
Paladin begins filling his hat with water.
At the time I did this, I had know no clue that I would be using this on the blog or that anything was filmed down here. Had I known this episode was filmed here then I would have spent a little more time here. So, this is not the right angle for the above. 
In fact, I am not even sure if that is the same gargoyle as the one in the episode. My memory might be off here, but it seems there was another gargoyle just to the right of this picture below. Normally, I do not care too much about this, but I might go back to this mission in the next few months when I am passing through and figure this one out. It is not on the top of my list of things to do, but, after all, it is Paladin we are talking about.
Sure enough they see the ghost walking around with chains. They run back out and the comandante confronts them. He does not believe in the ghost and demands they show him what they saw.
The ghost they see runs across to the other side of the cemetery. At the time I took the video I was not sure if it was this simple. I do think now they just showed them run straight across to the other side. The cemetery is a lot bigger than what you see in the pictures I show. Most of what takes place appears to be right next to the church.
The Sgt. and the comandante track the ghost to the front of the mission.
We were here earlier in one of the previous blogs.
Finally, they end back at the old pepper tree. The ghost cuts down a pot knocking out the comandante and Sgt. Garcia is convinced he was killed by the ghost. He runs off.
We then find out that the "ghost" was none other than Zorro all along. Zorro checks to see that the comandante is okay and then sets the local native free who was locked up.
Another shot of the pepper tree. One thing to note is that the ghost story about a monk who haunts the mission did not originate here, but is one that is commonly told at the San Juan Capistrano mission. I will have something about that mission soon, but it will not have anything to do with ghost stories. In a week or two, I will put up a follow up at this San Luis Rey mission from a total different tv series.
As for my Halloween Haunts series, this is it. I had hoped to have all this end on October, 31st, but it looks like I may not have a full internet connection next weekend. So, rather than me take chances on this or wait until November, I thought I would just post it all now.
I do not think I will have anything like this next year. Most of the entries this month took many years of thinking through to finally get them done. They represent the best I could think of. If you missed anything then go here for the playlist:
The Silence of Halloween Locations (Youtube Version)
Happy Halloween!!!