my kind of town

Shoshone, CA, population 18 (yes, 18), is my kind of place. The pic on the right shows pretty much the whole place, except for about 6 houses, the RV park, & the county high school (4 busses & maybe 7 class rooms). 

 

A couple of hot springs create a series of wetlands, an odd sight in the middle of a desert. Between the desert, the wetlands, & the river, a number of little ecosystems exist in a very small area, which has attracted over 225 species of birds. Some of the water has been captured to fill the pool, which is shared by the inn & the RV park - constant temperature of 89*.

 

                                       

The local cemetery really captured my interest. A local guy & his family ran much of the town, & his descendants still do. That family is buried along the stone wall. 

Other graves stretch along 2 sides of a hill, many marked out with an oval of stones. 

 

Some have personal items left on top. One grave even has a Singer sewing machine on top of it (pic on left) along with a fancy decorated stone (pic on right). 

A couple of graves are quite fancy. A few desert flowers are blooming there now.

 

Dublin Gulch has "homes" that miners dug into the soft stone walls of a small canyon. 

 

 

The cute little village park has a group of posts with signs showing the distances to various local spots along with some more distant locations: Jerusalem, Israel, & Sydney, Australia, & Mt Everest, Nepal are all well over 7,000 miles away - very important to know. 

 

The inn & the Chevron gas station/market have some fun murals.

 

As the county seat, both the sheriff's department & the local high school are located here.

 

The great little museum has local history in the front room & natural history in the back room. And the newly renovated cafe & saloon now has the bathrooms inside the building - quite an upgrade it seems. 

As I said, my kind of town...well village.