(Bodie Ghost Town, Bodie, California)

During our “Out-West Adventure” this summer, my kids really enjoyed exploring historically recreated sites like 1880’s Town (Murdo, SD) and Fort Bridger in Wyoming. But even more interesting were the true “Ghost Towns”, meaning these were historic towns once populated by residents living in the same location where the buildings are currently sitting. The two ghost towns we visited were South Pass City in Wyoming (southeast of Grand Tetons,) and Bodie in California (near Yosemite.)

South Pass City was a bustling town during the period of it’s last big gold rush in the 1880’s. South Pass rested on the main thoroughfare through the mountains on the Oregon Trail, and even in the 1930’s continued to sell gas and other traveler’s needs until highway 28 was built and bypassed the town. The restored and authentically furnished buildings give an excellent look at life in that time. They’ve also created well-made and interesting video histories to tell the stories of the town. ($2 admission.)

Bodie ghost town, near Yosemite National Park in California, is a large town maintained in a state of “arrested decay.” This means that the outsides of the buildings are treated by the State of California, to keep them from deteriorating further, but the insides of the buildings are generally left in whatever state they were abandoned. Stores have cash registers, wares, and broken chairs, all with a thick layer of dust. Broken windows are covered with a wire mesh to give you a glimpse of the ruin inside, as well as the family that once cooked meals in the kitchen. A milltown that grew to 10,000 residents when gold was discovered nearby, Bodie is now one of the largest true ghost towns remaining in the US. ($7 admission for adults, $5 for kids.)

Both of these ghost towns were well worth the extra driving we did to get there. Here are a few tips:

Prepare for long drives on dirt roads. Ghost towns are, well, deserted, so there generally aren’t well-paved roads leading to them. We drove seven miles on washboard gravel roads to get to Bodie.

Check your map and the website ahead of time to figure out the best route for your arrival and admission hours.

Watch carefully for signs. They aren’t always well-marked.

Consider creating a learning activity for your kids as they visit one or more ghost towns – scavenger hunt, guide books, read a biography. Throughout our 22-day journey, my daughter wrote a story set in the 1880’s, and had new ideas to add every time we stopped at a historical site.

Nevada is a good state for ghost towns. I didn’t realize this until we’d driven past it. Here’s an interactive map.

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

We still had one day before we would take my husband and son to the Salt Lake City airport and my daughter and I would continue on to California. It was raining anyway, so we thought we’d spend the day in Salt Lake City at Temple Square.

It’s a beautiful section of the city with amazing architecture and artwork, and Mormon missionaries at every turn, to help you find what you’re looking for. But the most remarkable part of our visit here, was the genealogy research we did — free of charge and with help from the Mormon nuns — at the Family Search Center.

All four of us found a spot in front of computers in the Family Search Center. The nuns helped us get started and we used all of their software and memberships to sites like ancestry.com. We researched both sides of our family and found ancestors back into Ireland and England, as well as many copies of the census as far back as 1880.

Here are some tips for using the fantastic Family Search resources when you’re visiting Temple Square:

Start at FamilySearch.org to plan your visit and followup before going to Temple Square.

Gather as much family information — maiden and married names, dates and places of birth — as you can prior to your visit, so you can make the most of your research at Temple Square.

Park at the public parking lot on the corner of North Temple and West Temple. It cost about $6 to park all day.

Ask a missionary/volunteer where to start. If you’re a newbie, they’ll probably send you to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to get more individual guidance from the volunteers. If you’ve done this before, you can probably head right to the Family History Library, where there are several stories of artifacts to discover.

Purchase a copy card and print your discoveries to take home with you.

Continue your research close to home! Family Search centers throughout the globe are set up with free clinics to help you on your journey through genealogy.

Enjoy your adventures in genealogy! Be careful – it’s addicting!
Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

After the Black Hills, we journeyed toward Yellowstone National Park, as all good “Westward Ho” RV families do. We stayed in the Fishing Bridge campground for two nights and generally spent most of our days driving to all the Yellowstone highlights.

We saw Old Faithful and the geysers, boiling mud pits and Mammoth Hot Springs,

Tower Falls,

and lots of wildlife! Buffalo dotted the landscape like cows, and we also saw elk, mule deer and bear. This buffalo scratched his neck on the entrance to the petrified tree.

Although Yellowstone was supposed to be our key destination, we ran into a few stumbling blocks.

Here are a few tips to help you navigate Yellowstone.

1. If you want to do the Chuckwagon at Roosevelt Lodge, try to visit Yellowstone after mid-June. It started two days after we left.

2. We weren’t able to swim in the boiling river either, because of spring runoff and rains that made the river too high. This might be a better late-summer activity.

3. If you’re driving an RV, don’t expect to do the drive-through loop at the top of Mammoth Hot Springs – you’ll have to park and walk.

4. Fishing Bridge campground, in the “RV’s with generators” section, at least, did not allow campfires and you couldn’t leave the grill out any longer than it took to cool (bears). The RV’s were parked very close together as well, so it really didn’t feel like camping at all. Check into the amenities at all the Yellowstone campgrounds before you make a reservation.

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

For the next few days, we spent time in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I wasn’t expecting there to be so much to do in the Black Hills – it’s pretty commercial now, with lots of ways to spend money, besides Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. It was a fun few days, though.

My son is a rockhound, and we knew we’d want to visit a gold mine while we were in the area, so we took the 1880’s train roundtrip from Hill City to Keystone. The train was expensive – about $75 for the four of us – but it was an interesting route and it saved us from having to drive our motorhome up and down the mountain again.

The Big Thunder Gold Mine in Keystone offered an interesting tour, with a fun gold panning demonstration and activity afterward. We spent quite a while at their gold panning troughs along the river, before taking a walking tour of Keystone.

Probably our favorite stop in the Black Hills, though, was Custer State Park, which has a large herd of buffalo, antelope, prairie dogs and donkeys.

The rangers don’t allow feeding of any wildlife, but do allow you to feed the donkeys, since they are non-native descendants of the first settler’s donkeys. They were eager eaters of our apples

We also went “real life” panning for gold in one of the Custer State Park streams. Didn’t find any, though.

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Our family embarked on a trip West last summer in a 24-foot motorhome. In all, we covered 7,000 miles in 22 days and over the next several weeks, I’ll share our adventure with you!

Our first stop was the original 1880’s town in Murdo – on I-90 right in the middle of South Dakota. Created from moving more than 30 authentic buildings to this Interstate stop, the 1880’s Town gives an excellent glimpse into the lives of a typical settler on the frontier.

In addition to the buildings, there’s also a museum with artifacts from famous Western movies, like Dances with Wolves.

My kids’ favorite part, though, was the opportunity to dress up in period garb. At just $5 per person, there wasn’t any question we’d be renting the costumes. We did, however, have to deal with the fact that for the remainder of the trip, my son pointed an imaginary pistol at someone every time we took his photograph.

Entry fees: adults-$10, teens-$7, children-$5. Coupons here.

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks