We had a look around Bodie for a while then set up a small picnic spot in the sun on the front verandah of one of the larger old wooden buildings in Bodie. While Cindy took in the scenery and warmed up in the sun I searched out and used an old outhouse put there for use by visitors to Bodie. On the way back I accidently walked into a four foot deep snow drift. When I returned to the verandah I spent a few minutes removing my boots and banging the snow off my socks.

After an hour of peeking into old buildings we took the main trail back out of town. It took a lot longer to walk back up the trail to the car. The snow had been warmed up by the sun and had become fairly soft. We were looking forward to getting to the car and resting our legs. While we were trudging up the last hill to the car we noticed the ranger coming back down the hill on his skis. He stopped to have a chat and I mentioned that I was pals with a guy living in Lee Vining called Stuart Scofield. The ranger knew Stuart quite well and asked me to say that Bodie Jack said `hello' next time I saw him. We said goodbye to the ranger and he effortlessly skied off down the hill while we trudged the last hundred yards up to the car.

Cindy was a lot less nervous on the way back down the slippery dirt road, and I even stopped a few times to take a photo of the high desert country. It was a very bright scene at 8000 feet with a clear sky, the winter sun low on the horizon shining on white snow.