A Stone's Throw: A Quick Drive: Crossing The Mojave Back To Vegas

Me no speaky English, was what I planned to tell them if they got on me for blatantly ignoring this sign. Luckily everyone was too enamored with the world's most boring train ride to even notice.

So I left California with the sun beating down on a beautiful morning to pursue another adventure. The first step was to drive back across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas to drop my truck off while I'm out of the States. This drive is normally pretty boring and straightforward, but I decided to stop halfway to stretch my legs, test my camera, and explore the Calico Ghost Town.

This dusty little stopover in the middle of the high desert has always peaked my curiosity, but I had yet to take the time to pull off the highway and see it for myself. I pulled off and trucked 3 miles out into the hills before parking at the town itself. Now, let me just say that I've been to desert ghost towns before, and the cool thing about them is the relatively high state of preservation the buildings are in due to the climate, combined with that eerie stillness of places that should have people. This was not one of those places.

After I forked over my entrance fee, I hopped out of my car and the first thing I noticed were the people. Lots of people. The former ghost town was flooded with boy scouts (not sure if this is a normal thing) wandering in and out of buildings that were obviously re-creations with a faux western feel that would have put Disneyland to shame. I passed an "Indian Trading Post" before winding around the "Saloon" proffering Big Gulp sized sodas to little kids (honestly, whiskey would probably be healthier for them). So, I finally came to the mining area of town, where forlorn holes still pocked the rock walls where a small replica train pitifully puttered along a pathetic track as an automated recording told the story of the town.

Screw that.

I decided to go play around some of the mines (don't try this at home kids) since I figured if I was dumb enough to fall into one, then I deserved what I got. I trekked out into the desert past the warning signs and out of earshot of those shrill boyscout voices. It was far less fun than I was expecting since they aren't exactly engineering wonders, but I did manage to get to good shots to practice with my new camera. After about an hour I trotted to my car and got back on the road, feeling a bit cheated by what I had expected from this ghost town.

Lesson of the day? Some things are better left dead, like ghost towns.