The main idea for my first novel, Mountain Time, came from two sources: first, the fascinating and rich history of the copper era near Encampment, Wyoming and second, an abandoned cabin. I’ve talked about this cabin before, but just to remind you, when I was probably ten or eleven, my dad and I were camping near Haggarty Creek in the Sierra Madres just about three miles down from the ghost town of Dillon. We were hiking and ran across an abandoned cabin. In the middle of nowhere with no road leading to it, the cabin, that first time we saw it, still had part of its roof. The thing that stayed with me more than anything else was that around the cabin the ground was littered with broken glass, pottery, and china. My imagination soared as I thought of different reasons a woman in the early 1900s would leave a cabin and not take her dishes. Thus, Mountain Time was conceived.
Now, I have a new forest mystery to ponder, and it just could be the makings of another novel because it is pretty intriguing. Karl and I were riding last week on our four wheelers, exploring a road in the Sierra foothills we’d never been on before. We stopped and climbed on some really cool rocks, then got back on the trail. We hadn’t gone far when I spied something incongruous in the forest. A fireplace. Rock fireplace, complete with a seven-foot-tall chimney. Now really, that doesn’t sound too interesting as nearly every house around here has a fireplace and chimney. The interesting part, though, was that there wasn’t anything around this chimney. Not a thing. There were no foundations that signified an old cabin was built there and this is all that remained. There was nothing on the forest floor but the chimney. There were no signs in the whole area that there’d ever been someone living there. But clearly, someone spent many, many hours choosing flat rocks and creating this fireplace. To add to the mystery- the inside of the chimney is absolutely clear. There is no sign that there ever was a fire in the chimney. Why?
Huh!
So, I’m sharing a picture of my new mystery. Any ideas? Anyone have any background knowledge of this thing?
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