Calico Ghost Town, CA

Monday, December 9th

Got to bring our cowboy hats here!  We’re at a ghost town!  It’s called Calico.  There were shops set up all around so we explored.  My Dad bought a new cowboy belt, I wanted him to get a cow skin one but it wasn’t his size.  There was a guy yelling about a mystery shack.  We decided to go over and see what he was talking about.  It was a tilted house.  We bought some tickets and he also gave us some gold panning tickets.  When we went in, the guy that we found out was the sheriff asked us if we’d been in a tilted house before.  We said no.  He said we were in for a treat, and he wasn’t joking.  It was so confusing.  First there was a rain gutter going up and the sheriff poured water in it and it looked like the water was going up instead of down.  There was a pool table tilted up too.  He put the balls in and they all went to the highest hole.  There was a ramp that we went up and it felt like we were sucked to the top.  There was also a chair that we sat in and couldn’t get off without pulling ourselves and a broom that stood up when he placed it on the ground.  When we were done we went to the gold panning we looked and it was closed.  Someone was lying on the ground with their arms crossed.  I got worried when the ambulance came.  I was glad when she was up and walking again though.  We started gold panning, but it was obviously fool’s gold.  The water was freezing!  When we were done we put our gold in a bottle with even more.  We went out and ate some grilled cheese, soup, peanuts, and drank some sarsaparilla.  The woman who worked there said if we spent at least 75$ in Calico, then we could get a Calico Bear.  We did, so we got a Calico Bear and named him Cal.

~Jack

California!  We spent the night in Barstow which was just gong to be a via point and a place to rest before we headed up to Yosemite National Park.  We saw an advertisement for the Calico Ghost Town and decided to check it out.  We were pleasantly surprised at what turned out to be a really cute town. 

Cute Cowgirl sign..."Whose bed have your boots been under?"

Nearly 127 yrs ago, the town of Calico was bustling with prospectors searching for riches.  Silver was king here.  When the price of silver dropped from $1.31 an ounce to .63 cents, Calico became a ghost of it’s former self.  It produced $86 million in silver and $45 million in borax during it’s heyday.  The town was purchased in 1951 and restored and later donated to San Bernardino County in 1966 by Walter Knott of Knotts Berry Farm.  

Once again, Scout was welcomed everywhere!

These boys have seen lots of jail time ever since they got those Cowboy hats!

On the town map, it lists 31 different buildings, including a few originals like Lil’s Saloon & Lane’s General Store along with the Calico Jail, Printshop, Woodworking etc.  The highlight of our tour was meeting the Sheriff who gave a personal tour of the mystery shack which was actually a crooked house.  He was engaging and funny and really played his role well. 

Rounding out our day, we had lunch in the saloon, throwing peanut shells on the floor, drinking root beer and finally, panning for gold!  We noticed all kinds of teddy bears all around town, if you spent a certain amount of money, you got one free.  The kids picked out a Peace Bear.

After we got thru the Mojave Desert, the landscape changed dramatically and we had a beautiful drive thru the mountains and into the sunset into Bakersfield where we spent the night before continuing on our trek to Yosemite.

Taken thru the windshield at 55MPG

Tuesday, December 10

After getting some necessary chores out of the way, we had an uneventful and mostly unremarkable drive landscape-wise heading out of Bakersfield until we hit the foothills close to Yosemite.  

You got that right!

We settled into an RV park at a golf course.  We were the only ones here until another RV pulled in…a nice guy from Riverside, CA traveling with his daughter and her friend from England.  Scott and I both chatted with him for some time. I baked up a couple dozen cookies and delivered some fresh out of the oven to our neighbors.

And we are off to Yosemite...I don't expect to see everything I want to see, many of the roads are closed and the waterfalls are frozen.  But, that's ok...how many people get to see it in the winter anyway?

~Linda