Bodie began as a mining camp following the discovery of gold in 1859 by a group of prospectors. By 1879, Bodie had a population of approximately 5000–7000 people and around 2000 buildings. Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls, and stagecoach holdups were regular occurrences in the Wild West boomtown.
Over the years, Bodie’s mines produced gold valued at nearly US$34 million.

Abandoned car in Bodie, California.

The first signs of decline started in 1880 when promising mining booms in Butte, Montana; Tombstone, Arizona and Utah lured men away from Bodie. By 1910, the population was decline to a mere 698 people and by 1920 only 110 people were left in town.

Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town and in 1962 it became Bodie State Historic Park. With a total of 170 buildings remaining, Bodie was named California’s official state gold rush ghost town.

Grizzly, the lone Bodie survivor posing with Ine.

Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Jackson,WY | Location on Map

The bar in the picture, called the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, was founded in the late 1890′s and tries to keep the cowboy history of Jackson alive with live western music and it’s authentic looks.

PS: Apparently, Jackson is home to the world’s largest ball of barbed wire… What famous game does this remind you of?

Chinese Spring, Yellowstone N.P. | Location on map

The current caldera was created by an enormous eruption that occurred 640.000 years ago. This eruption was about 1000 times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The predicted effects of a Yellowstone eruption are the coverage of North America with ash followed by several years of freezing weather for the whole world. Combine this with the fact that Yellowstone Park has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years… well… invest in winter clothing and spam

Upper Basin Spring,Yellowstone N.P. | Location on map

Yellowstone is in my opinion one of the most beautiful places in the world. The landscape is truly amazing and its features like geysers, basins, hot springs,… are unique in the world, which I’ll try to show you in more posts about Yellowstone.

The pictures in this post show Cave and Basin National Historic Site of Canada. It commemorates the birthplace of Canada’s National Park system, which began here in 1885. Naturally occurring, warm mineral springs can be found inside the cave, and outside in an emerald coloured basin.

Banff Cave and Basin | Location on Map

Actually we had planned to go to Banff Upper Hot Springs, but since we didn’t had the time to sit in a hot spring and relax for a while (we made that up in Vegas, so don’t worry, more about that soon) we visited the Cave and Basin.

Tourists flocked to Banff in the early 19th century to restore themselves in the natural hot springs
waters at the Cave and Basin site. Nowadays it’s not allowed anymore, to use the springs as a swimming pool. People don’t really mind because they can go to the Upper Hot Springs.

Banff Cave and Basin | Location on Map

Like I said, it’s breathtaking, but not only in the positive sense of the word. Inhaling the smell of the sulphur vapours, is really disgusting. Boy, was I happy to leave this historic site… (I had to inhale the smell again while visiting Yellowstone National Park, but it wasn’t that bad, the black and grizzly bears made it all worth it:) ).

Rockefeller plaza | Location on map

In the picture you see the famous GE building (872 foot – 266 m) which was the setting for the famous photograph by Charles C. Ebbets in 1932 of workers having lunch on a steel beam without safety harnesses.

The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid on August 15, 1858, just south of the orphanage founded by the Trappist monks and later further maintained by the Diocese of New York. Currently, it is the seat of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral | Location on map

PS: If you want to see the strangest case of perspective, take a look at the map location of the picture.

The pedestrian walkway which lies in the center of the bridge and higher than the automobile lanes, permits the passage of pedestrians across the bridge. From the Brooklyn side of the bridge, you get a fantastic overview over the skyline of New York, as you can see in the picture.

In 2006, a Cold War era bunker was found by city workers near the East River shoreline of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The bunker, hidden within one of the masonry towers, still contains the emergency supplies that were being stored for a potential nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.

Brooklyn Bridge | Location on map

I spotted this photographer while during our morning stroll in Central Park. I learned from Ron Niebrugge that the camera he is using is a 4×5 large format camera which apparently is still very popular with landscape photographers. It is not as impressive as the one he encountered during his photo shoots though, which you can see in this post on his blog.

Central Park, New York

An interesting fact about New York is that during the last glacier period (30.000 – 10.000 years ago), New York was fully covered by glaciers. The grooves left by these glaciers can be easily observed in the rocks still present at Central Park (as you can see in the picture). These glaciers also contributed to the current skyline of New York. Large amounts of soil, stone, and other debris were scraped up by the expanding glaciers were deposited where the ice front retreated. Therefore, buildings can be a lot higher on those places. This is why Manhattan has areas with very large skyscrapers and other spots with smaller buildings.