The White House coronavirus task force tells people to avoid bars.

I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to take you back to an unpleasant moment in time.

Back to early 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdowns first went into effect.

People all over were sheltering in place, staying home, trying to social distance, just

trying to figure out what their lives were going to look like going forward.

Some people took this idea of isolating even farther.

They set out for remote islands or deep into the woods.

Brent Underwood was one such person.

You know, I came in my little Texas two-wheel drive tundra that had street tires on it.

And not thinking that, hey, March, it's still probably snowing up at Cerro Gordo.

And so I didn't even make it into town the first night.

You know, the truck was sliding all over the road.

I ditched it there.

And that was kind of the beginning of the wildest freeers of my life by far.

You know, it was kind of a fitting begin to it.

I'm Dylan Thores, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, I'm talking with Brent Underwood, a man who is trying to bring a historic ghost

town back to life, even if he has to do it all by himself.

So I thought what better place to social distance than an abandoned mining town with nobody

for many miles in any direction?

Or after this?

...