Day # 35 - Calico Ghost Town

Travel days suck. But this one sucked a little less than normal. Abby had been asking for a while to visit a “ghost Town” during our trip. I am not sure what she expected to see. I think my kids are watching too many Scooby Doo videos, but since we were going to go past one of the better Ghost towns today on our way from Bakersfield, CA to Las Vegas, NV, Missy and I decided to stop for a couple of hours and check it out.
The name is Calico Ghost Town and it is right off the interstate just north of Barstow, CA. Calico was settled in 1881 and was home to productive Silver mine. In its heyday it was home to 1,200 people and had 22 saloons – sounds like my kind of town! We paid our 15 bucks and headed up the hill to check out the town. AJ kept telling us he was looking for “spooky goats.” The town itself contains a large number of original buildings and the rest of the buildings were restored in the 50’s by Walter Knott (of Knott’s Berry Farm Fame). He later donated the land to the county for use as a park. The town was interesting but not that exciting. So Missy and I liked it, but the kids were a little bored. There were shops and historical markers but the kids were hot and tired (it was 102 degrees in Calico when we arrived). The one thing that we all really enjoyed was taking a tour of Maggie’s Mine. You can enter one of the shafts and explore a short distance down some of the tunnels. The kids thought it was pretty cool and we liked it too (partly because it was a cool 72 degrees inside). Overall, Calico had several good photo ops, and it was a good way to get out of the car for a few hours to stretch your legs, but I wouldn’t make a special trip.

We found the requisite penny smashing machine and made our pennies before heading back to the car. I wanted to gas up before heading through Death Valley. We paid the highest price yet for gas at 3.34 a gallon. I will be glad to get out of California. We worked our way through the desert and up the mountains towards Las Vegas. There were signs all along the highway warning travelers of the perils of driving through the desert and how to avoid overheating your vehicle. We climbed some pretty steep grades and the temps were over 100 degrees again. I kept my eyes on our gauges and tried to keep the truck in 4th gear. Our 2004 Ford Excursion has performed flawlessly during this trip and it was a workhorse again today.

I was getting a little tired and asked Missy if she could drive for a little while. She had commented a couple of days ago that she had not driven a single mile while we have been in California (and she was happy about that!) so I figured she could deal with the last 50 miles of Cali Freeway. I slept for about an hour and when I awoke, Missy informed me that while I snored, she had the privilege of towing through the only construction we’ve seen in days and down the steep 7% downgrade. Oopps.

We switched and I took us into Vegas during some heavy Friday evening traffic. We are staying at the Circus Circus KOA. We were trying to warn the kids that this part of the trip would be very different kind of camping than all of the picturesque natural parks we have visited so far. The campground was exactly what we expected – it was basically a huge parking lot in back of the casino (over 500 RV sights) with hook-ups. There wasn’t a blade of grass in sight. Sarah our jaded camper commented, “We’re camping on that?” We got ourselves checked in and tried to acclimate ourselves to the 108 degree heat. If one more person tells me it’s a dry heat, I might have to punch them. When you can fry eggs and bacon on the sidewalk that is hot! We were hot and tired so we headed over to the Circus Circus casino to grab a bite at the buffet while we waited for My Mom's plane to get in and for her to catch the hotel shuttle. She is staying in one of the rooms at the casino.

Her shuttle was delayed so we chose to watch some of the Circus acts in the Casino “Midway”. The first act we saw was a juggler who juggled 7 tennis balls at once while walking up a flight of stairs. AJ thought that was fantastic. The second act was a girl who could bend and twist her body in some very unusual ways. We all enjoyed the acts and although they go on all night, we were all getting tired.

One last call to Mom’s cell phone and we discovered she had arrived and just gotten to her room. The kids had been looking forward to seeing their “Nana” so she met in the lobby so they could see her before heading off to the camper for bed. After hugs and kisses all around we went back to the camper. I was beat. I am not sure what zapped everyone’s energy faster, the long drive or arriving to the unreal heat of Vegas in summer. Either way we all fell into bed and were out in minutes.