Last week we took a short but very windey drive to Lake Isabella and Bodfish, CA. Lake Isabella is in the heart of the Kern River valley. To be honest with you the drive was prettier then the actual destination. It seems the lake has been drained in order to fix the dam and it looked pretty shallow. Not to mention  the surrounding brown dusty hills were not the most picturesque. I wish I would have taken a picture just to show you. The town of Lake Isabella is small with a population of around 4000. We had lunch and then played in the park and checked out the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. After we visited the neighboring small town of Bodfish and the Silver City Ghost Town.

During the late 1960's and early 1970's the Dave & Arvilla Mills family began hauling in historic local Kern Valley structures, (many of which were slated for destruction) to the present site in Bodfish. "Represented in this composite town are over twenty historic buildings (most not visible from Lake Isabella Blvd) from the mining camps of Keyesville, Whiskey Flat, old Isabella, Claraville, Hot Springs, Miracle, Southfork and other local frontier settlements" Silver City was closed for over 15 years until it was purchased by the Corlew family in 1990 and re-opened to the public shortly thereafter.

It is now operated as a museum and believed to be haunted. We checked out all the cool antiques in the shop and the photos of those so called ghosts on the wall. The resident cat also decided he didn't like adorable 5 year old girls and scratched and bit one. OUCH! Penelope was tough though and didn't shed a tear.

On our way back we decided to pull over and head down to the river where we got some pretty shots and Timber was ambushed by a very playful lab and then almost drowned in the river. I thought dog paddling was instinct...

Here are some pics of our day...