For the fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Marley & Me, a heartwarming story of a 2,000-mile road trip taken by a woman and her dog. Bodie, mystery mix rescue pup, is on death row in a Los Angeles dog shelter, having been abandoned by his owner. Belinda, a heartbroken woman, is in a heap on the floor of her vintage apartment, having been dumped by the man of her dreams. Two lost souls ready to find a new life—together. Belinda falls in love with Bodie the moment he plants his furry butt on her bare, flip-flopped foot. Soon, the two embark on a 2,000-mile West Coast road trip, taking in spectacular Big Sur, a pack run in the wilds of Oregon, afternoon tea at Doris Day’s dog-loving hotel in Carmel, a fragrant encounter with the creator of Kennel No.5 furfume, and a bar stop in a small town near San Francisco where a dog was elected mayor and served for thirteen years . . . On their soul-searching adventure, Belinda and Bodie cruise along California State Route 1, one of the most iconic highways in America, heading towards Portland, Oregon—repeatedly voted one of the most dog-friendly cities in America. Join Belinda and Bodie on this feelgood road trip, and you, too, will feel the wind in your hair and a wag in your tail!

Nestled amongst the sage-covered, windswept hills of Californias Eastern Sierra is the site of one of the most notorious mining towns of the Old West. In 1859, gold was discovered in the treeless hills northeast of Mono Lake. By 1879, Bodie was a metropolis of nearly 10,000 souls and was briefly the third-largest city in California. Excitement was short-lived, however, and word soon spread that the mines had reached peak production. An exodus began, but contrary to popular belief, Bodie was never totally abandoned. People continued living in this curious and beautiful place throughout the 1950s, and in 1962, the California State Parks system purchased the town site. Now stabilized against the elements, Bodie is today known as the largest unrestored ghost town in the West.

Stretching from Victorville to Carson City, Highway 395 offers a snapshot of California's diverse landscapes - and oddities. Tales of skinwalkers and sasquatch sightings flourish among the bones of ghost towns, and stories of the elusive Lone Pine Mountain Devil ignite the curiosity. Far from fiction, the Sierra Phantom lived among the hills for fifty years, and Mountaineer Norman Clyde used his skills to find lost hikers and climbers. Rumors of the Lost Cement Mine, with a rich vein of gold, lures people in, and the Tuttle Creek Ashram, built high above Lone Pine, offers peace. Author Brian Clune explores the strange and fascinating side of the majestic mountains and lonely deserts along the El Camino Sierra.

First published in 1956, this is a history of California’s official state gold rush ghost town, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and in 1962 became Bodie State Historic Park. The account is written by Ella M. Cain, a native of Bodie, whose father-in-law James S. Cain and family owned much of the land the town is situated upon and had hired caretakers to protect and to maintain the town’s structures following its decline in 1914. “Bodie deserved and sustained its reputation of being the most lawless, the wildest and toughest mining camp the Far West has ever known.”—Ella M. Cain

In the summer of 2000 David Haward Bain and his family left their home in Vermont and headed west in search of America’s past. Spiritually, their journey began on a Kansas trail where the author’s grandmother was born in a covered wagon in 1889. Between the Missouri River and the Golden Gate, they retraced the entire route of the first transcontinental railroad and large stretches of the Oregon and California trails, and the equally colorful old Lincoln Highway. Following vanished iron rails and wagon wheel ruts, bumping down backroads and main streets, they discovered the deep, restless, uniquely American spirit of adventure that connects our past to our present. A superb writer and an exacting researcher, Bain conjures up a marvelous sense of coming unstuck in time as he lingers in the ghost towns and battlegrounds, prairies and river ports, trainyards, museums, deserts, and diners that line his cruise west to California. Bain encounters a fascinating cast of characters, both historic and contemporary, as well as memories of his grandparents and the journeys that shaped his own heritage. Writing in the tradition of William Least Heat-Moon and Ian Frazier, and with an engaging warmth and a deep grasp of history all his own, Bain has fashioned a quintessentially American journey.