Ghost Town

Do you remember the good old days
Before the ghost town?
We danced and sang and the music played
In the boomtown.

‘Ghost Town’ – The Specials

Got up at 7.30am and got washed and dressed before we went downstairs to Chick-fil-A for our breakfast once again. While we were there, we saw our driver Frank come in for his breakfast too. Trevor asked if I was feeling OK. “Yes, of course. Why?” I asked him.

He told me I had been in a bit of a ‘state’ last night after that second Manhattan, but I had absolutely no recollection at all. I felt perfectly fine this morning though, and enjoyed my bacon and egg muffin and coffee.

We then packed up whatever we’d used in our cases (yes! our cases!) before locking them up. We put my red rucksack into the small case that we had bought in Williams, as it was the right size for stashing in the overhead locker. Then we checked all around our room to ensure we hadn’t left anything, before making our way down to the Golden Nugget foyer for 8.45am, so all the cases could be loaded into the bus for a 9.00am departure. Several people commented on my hair, and said you could tell that I had been able to blow-dry it properly! 🙂

On the bus, we checked to see where we were sitting today and took our seats accordingly. Frank said that we would be mostly travelling today, with a few rest stops, as we had a fair few miles to cover to reach Visalia and the Wyndham Hotel, where we would be staying tonight.

We set off at 9.00am exactly, into the Las Vegas Saturday morning traffic. On the way, Frank took the mic and asked for the general consensus about where we would stop for lunch. He said he was originally going to take us to McDonald’s, but he suggested – if everyone was in agreement – that we visit an actual real Ghost Town in a place called Calico, California, where there was a saloon and restrooms and historic buildings we could visit. He asked which we would prefer, and everyone voted to go to the Ghost Town. I mean, you can go to Maccy Dee’s anytime, can’t you, but when else are you going to get the chance to visit a real American ghost town? 🙂

After about an hour and three quarters, we arrived in a town called Baker, CA and Frank pulled up in the car park of “Alien Fresh Jerky” and said we had 10 minutes here to use the restrooms and purchase any soft drinks or snacks if we wanted. It was a strange place, with old vintage cars outside that had figures with big ‘alien’ style heads, indeed the company logo featured an ‘alien’ as you can see on the their web site.

Inside, we made a beeline for the restrooms at the back, where there was the inevitable queue at the ladies. We then had a quick browse around the shop, which sold snacks and sweets as well as lots of different kinds of jerky. Trevor and I bought a bottle of Diet Coke between us as well as some root vegetable crisps and a packet of jelly beans.

There was another long queue at the checkout (there was only one person serving) so we were late getting back onto the coach. Once everyone was aboard, we set off once again, driving through the arid desert landscape with its bare mountains and dusty roads. Every now and again you would see a massive, long freight train slowly making its way through the desert; some of the trains were so long they needed four engines at the front.

Around twelve o’clock, we pulled up in the coach park of the Calico Ghost Town, and Frank told us to be back on the coach for 1.45pm. He pointed out a saloon where we could get something to eat; in fact, Tomi had called ahead to let them know that a coach load of 51 were coming. He also told us where the restrooms were.

We alighted from the coach into the midday desert heat; the sun shone down relentlessly from a flawless sky. We decided to have lunch first, and take a look around afterwards.

We pushed open the wooden door of the saloon and found ourselves in a cheerful room with wooden chairs and tables covered in red and white checked tablecloths. A long counter ran along one side. As several of us walked in a lady, hearing our British accents, asked if we were from Newmarket, and we agreed that we were. She showed us to a table, that held about 10 people, and we took our seats.

I ordered the house salad with chicken, and asked them not to include cucumber with it (which I hate!). I chose to wash it all down with a cold bottle of Pellegrino, after deciding to give the beer a rest for a while (at least until tonight!). 🙂

The salad was delicious, but it included the pointless croutons (which I always pick out of any salad or soup) and the Ranch salad dressing came in what we would call a ‘gravy boat’ and would have fed six people! I only poured a little over my salad; I didn’t want to drown the crisp lettuce, fresh tomatoes and crunchy radishes in it.

Afterwards, we headed back outside again into the heat and looked around Calico, which is in San Bernardino County in the Mojave desert. We learned that Calico was founded in 1881 during the largest silver strike in California state history. At its peak, the town had over 500 mines producing millions in silver ore. In the mid-1890s, silver lost its value, making mining unprofitable. The town emptied quickly and was completely abandoned by 1907.

A guy called Walter Knott bought the town in the 1950s. He restored most of the buildings to look exactly as they did in the 1880s before donating the land to the county. Only five original structures remain intact today, including Lil’s Saloon and Lucy Lane’s house.

Lucy Lane was a resident in Calico for over 67 years. She arrived in Calico with her parents, brothers and sisters, three years after the initial discovery of silver. She was an accomplished prospector and after she married John Lane in 1892, they set up Lane’s Store, a grocery business which initially did very well, but then went out of business as the inhabitants of Calico slowly left the town for good.

The Lane house was fascinating; it was restored to look exactly as it would have done at the time, complete with soft furnishings like curtains and bedspreads.

We continued exploring the old buildings and the former mine works. It was all fascinating stuff, but it was uncomfortable walking around in the 34°C desert heat. Trevor decided to go up the hill to explore further, but I said I’d see him back at the coach park, and I found a wooden table and bench under the shade of a tree.

Everyone was back on the coach at 1.45pm apart from one person…. Steve (who had disappeared without telling anyone at the Grand Canyon). We wondered whether he had done a runner again and whether Frank would wait for him this time, but then we saw him coming. He boarded the coach and carefully avoided meeting anyone’s eye as he made his way to his usual seat at the back.

We set off once again, and Frank gave us an ETA at the hotel for 5.30pm, after another rest stop on the way. We settled down in our seats, with the sleeve of Trevor’s coat blocking the air-con vents as well as we could, as it was freezing on the coach once again, appearing to be more so after the desert heat outside.

It was fairly quiet on the coach. Several people napped, some read, looked out of the window or fiddled around with their phones. We passed through small villages which broke up the desert landscape, and after a couple of hours were able to stretch our legs when Frank stopped at a petrol station to refuel, and those who wanted to could use the loos once again.

As planned, we pulled up outside the Wyndham Hotel in Visalia. I had never heard of this town in California before, but it was apparently very handy for visiting Yosemite National Park, where we were going tomorrow. Tomi informed us that Visalia serves as the economic and cultural heart of Tulare County, which is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the entire United States.

Everyone collected their luggage from the coach locker and we trundled our cases inside, where our room key cards had already been allocated. Our room was on the sixth floor and there was one thing we wanted to do after spending all day travelling – take a refreshing dip in the hotel pool. 🙂

Our room was nicer than the one at the Golden Nugget, large and airy and with two double beds; we chose the one closest to the window. We could look out over the car park at the front of the hotel and see the main road and a wooded area with paths that looked as if it might be a park.

We decided to go and find the outdoor pool (there was an indoor one as well), then come back and change into our swimming things. We found it on the ground floor just off the hotel reception; it was fenced off with a gate, and you needed your room key-card to open the gate. A sign on the gate said you could obtain towels from reception.

We went upstairs and I quickly changed into my tankini and matching sarong, then put my flip-flops on. We took the lift to the ground floor again and went out to the pool, where several people from our bus had already procured sun-loungers and towels. Trevor went off to get the towels while I placed our stuff on a couple of sun-loungers which were under a large parasol.

I then entered the pool by means of a series of steps, rather than the steep poolside ladder. The water was much, much colder than I had anticipated and I took some time, gingerly inching my way down into the water, squealing when I made the final plunge. Once I was in and accustomed to the cold water, however, it was lovely and refreshing.

We spent around half an hour in the pool, swimming around and chatting. Then we decided to return to our room, get dried off and dressed once again, and go our and look for something to eat.

In our room, a droning noise reached our ears. It sounded as if it was either racing bikes or racing car engines, but we couldn’t see where it was coming from. Trevor is a keen motor racing fan so he was very interesting in the source of that noise! Looking at Google Maps, I saw that we were quite close to Plaza Park, which had a large duckpond, children’s play park and the Plaza Raceway racing circuit. We decided to go out and explore.

The main heat of the day had dissipated now, and the early evening air was mellow and pleasant. We crossed the road and walked over to the wooded area and along the path, following the source of the noise. Soon we came to a large pond, where there were families out enjoying an evening stroll and feeding the ducks and geese we could see.

As we neared the racing circuit, we could see trailers which were carrying stock cars. There was obviously some sort of race on, because the floodlights were on and several spectators were sitting in the stands (or the ‘bleachers’ as they call them in the States). I asked Trevor if he wanted to go in and watch some stock car racing, but he was content to look through the chain-link fence surrounding the track.

We watched for a while, then slowly made our way back to the Wyndham Hotel. In the reception area, we saw that there was a counter where you could buy ready-made sandwiches, so we each purchased one, then decided to take it into the hotel bar and wash it down with a beer. We only had the one, however, as we were quite tired after our long day.

We then returned to our room about 9.30pm where I did some of this blog, watched a bit of TV and read my book for a while before settling down about half past ten, quite early for us when we are on holiday. But we had to be up early in the morning as I wanted to shower and blow-dry my hair before our scheduled departure of 8.00am.