How the true "Old West Was"

[THE PILGRIM]

Yesterday Theresa and I took a ride on our RZR far out in the boonies. We found a old homestead in a beautiful remote area. It was and is about 70 miles from the nearest town and has mountain ranges in between. Its near the utah/nevada border 70 miles straight west of beaver utah. Its in a wild horse refuge area north of Indian Peak.
Mackleprang Homestead, UT
I goggled it. Its a project getting to it on a ATV much less riding a horse 80 miles to get your supplys! When I find places like these it sure makes you respect how tough those old timers had to be.
Mackleprang Homestead / Mackleprang Homestead, Utah, United States, North America

Used to Deer hunt in Nevada straight west of there. Real, real remote country. The only folks I can ever remember seeing over there beside other Deerhunters were sheepherders from Utah, who had the BLM grazing lease.

 

[SmokeStack Lightning]

You can still get a little taste of what the west was like by visiting "Bodie, California".

Bodie is an old ghost town in a state of "arrested decay" which was finally made into a state park so the vandalism would cease.

Bodie ghost town

I was there in 1973 and will go back again, soon. Lots of old silver mines in the area which produced lots of silver, back then.

The road into the Bodie in 1973 was a two lane cow path (13 miles) which my 1972 Super Beetle had trouble navigating because of the 'road' conditions.

 

[BigBill]

That's where the word was coined "teamsters".

I grew up in the mid 50's I was 5yo. I remember a Mexican boy having pics of his relatives in leathers riding horses. He had leather chaps from them. They were in there orginal black and white colors.

I was born 200 to 300 years too late. I would of loved the trappers life in the mountains.

 

[feralmerril]

I first visited Bodie California in 1960. That was before it became a state park. A older woman ran a one gas pump store. She told me I think, another two familys or so still lived there then. I walked around and near her store was a funeral parlor boarded up and I peered through a window and seen a couple caskets! Through the years I visited it again once or twice after it became a state park.

 

[feralmerril]

Back in the late 1940s when I was about nine my folks had some old couple that were friends. The man, "Ray Smith", told that he was in the "Pancho Villa Expedition" and told me storys of his army days chasing Villa. I dont recall if it was before or after the campaign, but he told of him and a party of his friends spending a year on a hunting/exploring trip in the rocky mountains useing tobbagans and snow shoes etc. He said it was almost a year before they seen a road! I used to eat up those storys. My mom ran a old country general store during the war and we had loafer benchs outside and in winter chairs around a pot belly stove on one end of the store. Loved listening to those old boys.