Calico Ghost Town

by Jeff · May 16, 2016

Calico:

So, we got up on Sunday morning after a great night’s rest. I made some coffee and got about getting us buttoned up to travel. RP got some bagels toasted up. She’s really getting good at toasting in a pan over our LP gas cook top. This is an art form as the LP heats so much faster and gets hotter than our normal natural gas at the house. She burned a whole lot of bread and has set off the smoke detectors in Piper before. Really enjoying having the real coffee cups along that RP thoughtfully packed. We are coffee snobs and grind our own beans each morning.

Anyway, I emptied the tanks, topped off the fresh water and we got everything buttoned up. This has been a fairly fast process since I haven’t been unhooking Piper from The Beast. We’ve been been lucky enough to pull into almost level spots at the parks so far.

RP made us sandwiches and we filled the cooler with snacks and drinks and we pointed the combo south on 99, next destination: Calico Ghost Town. This is a San Bernardino County Park that has been kept operating through the efforts of William Knott (Knotts Berry Farm founder) who bought and donated the entire area to the County. Check out the towns website at calicotown.com.

The town was started in March, 1881 and was a pretty going concern until 1907 when the price of silver halved.

Running south on 99 you hang a left at Bakersfield and point the nose towards Barstow. Not far east of Bakersfield on highway 58 are a couple of fruit/vegetable/nut stands. The product is locally produced and often from the fields you are driving past. Stop in and get something fresh….they also encourage tasting of their products (this is better than the Costco buffet) and the prices reflect the farm to stand mentality. Just try to buy an avocado in Washington for these prices!

Next stop is Tehachapi. This town is a favorite of ours. We always fuel at the Loves on the east end of town and usually patronize some of the local stores. This town also boasts the only railroad grade that actually curves back on itself to climb into the hills. Truly an engineering feat. We pull into the Loves and i queue up at the end pump with the Beast/Piper combo. Fill up with diesel and get back on the road. The wind is blowing 15-20 mph sustained and according to the news, gusting to 50 mph. I look down at one point and the computer says I am getting 26 miles per gallon!!! Ya just gotta love a tailwind.

Tailwind mileage

The anticipation mounts as we go through Barstow and pass Boron. We drive this route often but have never made the turn off the highway at Yermo. I come down off the cruise control, Beastie Boy shifts down through the gears (I just love the sound and feel of that Duramax/Allison combo working together), come to a complete stop, hang a left under the highway and curl up toward the town.

First sight is of the word “CALICO” in painted white rock on the hillside.

Calico

We come to the guard shack manned by a regional parks ranger. She gives us the camping site map and tells us how to get set up. They prefer that you make reservations online but they don’t do Sunday reservations, it is first come on Sunday. The campsites are located in the canyons below Calico and it’s a pretty good setup. We got lucky again and pulled into a site that was level side to side, but I had to unhook the Beast for the first time this trip as the fore/aft bubble was buried in the front of the level.

Disconnected at the park

Beware

We got Piper all set and went up to the town on the hill to walk around and actually get registered to stay. Part of the camp fee is admittance to the whole regional park (the town and more area used for ORV fun). There are a number of original buildings still being used, a restaurant, a short train ride(Calico/Odessa Railroad), and an underground tour of the Maggie Mine, gold panning(salted sands, but fun for the novice), and a number of the typical general merchandise found in these attraction towns. A lot of the town is ADA accessible as are the bathrooms in the campground, but be advised that not all of the area is friendly to those who are not mobile on rough terrain.

Looking toward the cemetery

Train depot

Diesel powered loco

RP in the street

Done here

Mine bldg roof

Looking toward the 21st century

Recycled bottle shop

Calico fire dept

Calico hearse

Desert rock miners shack

Feet a little tired, we headed back to Piper and I broke out the grill again for some burgers. RP cut up the fixings and added that great avocado we bought at the fruit stand….discovered that the flies have hatched in the canyons, must get some insect eradication devices (nothing on board but RP and I whacking flies left and right with improvised swatters and showing them out the screen door. Anyway, the burgers turn out great, no salad tonight but we have some sun chips and fresh fruit (did I mention the fresh fruit stands). We play our usual couple of cribbage games and get out and walk off the day by touring around the campground. This allows us to indulge in dessert, a couple of caramels that we bought in town and a shared cup of hot chocolate.

We are only getting 3G on the Verizon phones so a little tame online poker for RP and some blog work for me. RP just looked at me and headed for bed so this is my cue to wind it down and shut the house down, get the coffee ground and ready for the morning.

Update on Monday morning: We hiked up the hill to the town around 8 and walked the whole place with no other tourists around and the sun coming up over the hills. Lord, this is gorgeous country even with the seemingly total barren landscape. We spy a covey of big adult Gambrels Quail in town. There are numerous other birds in evidence as well as a rabbit and some varying lizards.

Warming up the cold blood

We took the little tour of the Maggie Mine and it is a pretty cool display. The young lady named Destiny in the mine tour building went way above and beyond to get RP a tank top in her size, including running to a different store (up the rock wall) to get the right shirt. We had Sarsparilla floats in Lil’s Saloon amidst the portraits of the old time gunfighters.

At Lil’s place

All in all we both agree this is one of the better “ghost town” experiences we have done together. We would definitely recommend this adventure to anyone physically capable of the rougher terrain. The staff were very professional and personable. It is easy to get into the park and if you’re going to camp it’s definitely worth the drive.

We got RP her shirt, had our Sarsparilla floats and figured it was time to head for the 21st century. We rolled out of the hills and back onto I-15 northbound and through Baker, Primm and Jean. We crested the hill and got our view down into the valley and Las Vegas. Next stop back at the Oasis RV Park.