Pocketful of Precious (WAYHAUGHT)

Lost and alone...

A little after six, the sun beginning to warm the edges of the horizon, Nicole wondered if she would ever stop smiling. John Denver filled the pickup truck she'd recently purchased, his voice keeping her company on the journey ahead, Jimmy Buffett hitching a ride to shake things up.

"Lost and alone on some forgotten highway," she bellowed, glad no one could hear her rendition. "Travelled by many, remembered by few..." Johnny's words hit home as she left Los Angeles, turning onto the 395 towards Lake Tahoe, ready to drive the two hundred or so miles to her next adventure. "Don't know where I'm going, not sure where I've been..."

Such a crazy journey to get here. It began with a message left by her business partner, something about a ghost town for sale. "This has your name written all over it," Xavier had said when she called him back.

She'd laughed, one of those full-belly laughs, figuring he couldn't be serious. "Sure."

"A whole freakin' town."

"How much?"

"1.5."

"Is that all?"

"We could do this."

"You make it sound easy."

"I'll send you the link. Check it out."

She did. In the weeks that followed his crazy idea of owning a ghost town became a not-so-crazy idea, the desire to bring this once-thriving settlement back to life growing on her as she researched its history. Six months later, she and a handful of friends had purchased the whole freakin' town. All three hundred and thirty six acres.

This latest project suited her perfectly. An abandoned mining town called Cerro Rico, Spanish for Rich Hill. Abandoned in the sense that she, along with Randy Nedley the town's caretaker, if you could call him a caretaker, would be the only ones living there. Before this, she'd owned hostels in Brooklyn and Austin. And before that, she'd lived out of a rucksack, travelling across Central and South America. And before that, she'd worked at an investment bank in New York, for the sum total of one month.

In search of a purpose which didn't entail sitting at a desk playing with other people's money, she went looking for a reason to be here for however long being here might be. That was Nicole. The entrepreneur, the adventurer, the wandering soul, looking for something she'd like to do with her life.

Adelanto in her rear view mirror, the straightest of roads stretched out in front, flanked by the wide-open, burnt ochre landscape. The route would take her through Kramer Junction and Johannesburg, through Inyoken and Bradys, through Pearsonville and Grant, turning right at Olancha onto the 190, then left onto the 136 towards Keeler. A final dirt road would take her to a place she would call home for however long she decided to stay, nestled on the edge of the Inyo Mountains.

A once thriving town, during its heyday Cerro Rico produced half a billion dollars' worth of silver. When the silver ran out, they mined lead and zinc. When they ran out the town was left to rot, Mother Nature reclaiming much, long forgotten by those in Los Angeles unaware the city owed its existence to this now defunct settlement. Only a fraction of the original five hundred structures remained. Twenty two to be exact, many in desperate need of restoration, some barely hanging onto the hillside, weather-twisted and time-tarnished, missing roofs, and walls, windows mere gaping holes through which the past could be viewed.

The American Hotel took pride of place in the very heart of an otherwise barren landscape. Still intact, its saloon looked as though it had been plucked straight out of an old Western, with its spindle chairs, and its rows of glass bottles neatly arranged behind the bar, their contents long consumed. A bullet remained lodged in the panelling of its card room, the faint trace of blood still visible on the floor. That was Ned Reddy's handiwork following a fight on Christmas Day 1870. Five more incidents earned him a place alongside Doc Holliday, ahead of Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, and the Sundance Kid.