Calico Ghost Town is a county park centered around a reconstructed silver mining ghost town. It has two campgrounds: one near the entrance on flat land where campers with off-road vehicles can park, and the other in a small canyon, where no off-road vehicles can go! Whew! If you have ever had the "pleasure" of camping where there are a lot of noisy off-road vehicles kick up dust, you will know what I mean!
Anyway, there are not very many decent places to camp in this part of the Mohave Desert, so I have stayed here a couple of times, but never had time to tour the ghost town. This time, I decided to take the time since it was a nice, sunny day. Heading toward the non-ORV campground, you see these real, original silver mines. I don't know if anyone found silver in this specific mine, but they certainly dug a lot of holes looking for it.
And another one.
Part of the campground. This photo was taken from the ghost town the next morning.
This is a good view looking out into the valley from the ghost town parking area.
This is a reconstructed town, where they built mostly new structures based on what they knew about the old town. Mostly, the shops are places to buy food and western souvenirs, but it is well done, with a lot of history thrown in.
Some old mining equipment.
This sign points out that the owners of Knott's Berry Farm was involved in the town reconstruction.
This store is a combination of museum and souvenir shop. This part is a museum.
There is some candy and a few things for sale mixed in with the historical stuff.
The clothing is not for sale, but it certainly is a unique way to display merchandise!
I don't know who built this bottle house! It was closed, so I could not go inside to check on the history, but I did find this online: http://www.spacesarchives.org/explore/collection/environment/walter-knott-bottle-house/
Notice that the desert is green from recent rains!
It's hard to see, but there are several mines in this mountain-side.
This house was one of five in the town that did not need to be reconstructed. It was owned by Lucy Lane, and she lived here until 1939. It is a museum, but it also was closed.
And some information about Lucy.
On to Las Vegas and one of my favorite campgrounds--Willow Beach Marina, along the Black Canyon of the Colorado River!
Boron is a teeny tiny town just north of Edwards Air Force Base in California. It mostly consists of homes that have seen better days, but is on California 58, the main road from most of California to Las Vegas, so it gets a lot of traffic. I have driven past there at least a dozen times without thinking there is much to see there. There are a couple of restaurants and a high school, with a church or two, not even a gas station that I remember.
However, recently, I read about the borax mine just north of the town. In fact, it is so large that it really overwhelms the town: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/borax-visitor-center.
So, I did not have an extremely long drive this day, so decided to stop by this free attraction and take a few photos. To get here, you exit CA- 58 just west of Boron. There are several signs, so you cannot miss it. Turn north at the top of the exit, and drive a mile or so into the borax plant area.
Just follow the signs! This mine, by the way, was where the company that originally mined borax in Death Valley went when it became too hard to mine borax there. So, it really is the 20 Mule Team Borax company!
You do have to drive about half a mile on a well-taken-care-of gravel road up to the top of the hill on the right. It was not horribly steep, so not too difficult.
The visitor center is covered with gravel so it is partly buried.
Borax comes in several forms, often in several forms in the same mine, but here is a big chunk showing a crystal form and a white powdery form.
A photo of the mine taken several years ago. However, the need for borax has not lessened and this mine is booming. The young lady at the desk said they have been mining here for over 90 years and believe there is another 80 years of borax still available here. When they started out, they mined underground, but as technology gave them better equipment, it turned into a gigantic open-pit mine.
And here is a photo of one of the original 20-Mule Teams.
Some of the gigantic trucks they use to mine borax.
Borax is used in a lot of industries, but it is also used in the home. In fact, I keep borax in a plastic milk bottle in my motorhome to use on ant hills outdoors. And if you look at most even liquid ant killers, the main ingredient is borax!
Another giant crystal.
After you leave the visitor center, you walk around the back and up a set of stairs and are on an observation platform on the roof. This is a view of the crushing plant. The white hills are piles of crushed borax being stored.
One of the big trucks is in the parking lot.
More photos of the plant and the working part of the open pit to the right.
This is the most currently active part of the mine. The young lady at the desk said they are hiring truck drivers! Can you see any giant trucks? There are some down there but they look very tiny.
Some equipment from when it was an underground mine.
And some plastic mules pulling original wagons.
Heading down the hill.
I am finally back to blogging! I drove back to California on March 5 and was lucky to hit a relatively dry and not-too-cold time to do it. There is absolutely no way you can get to California from Central Oregon without going over mountains--on the east are the Sierras and to the are mountains shared with the northern border of California. There are several passes at least 4,000 feet high, which means if it is raining at lower elevations, it is likely snowing up there. And I do not want to drive a motorhome over mountains in snow.
I had given myself three days to drive 500 miles, which I would usually do in two days. Mostly the drive to Grant's Pass, the first three hours is pretty boring. But it starts to get hilly south of there. Luckily the pavement was nice and dry.
There is snow at just slightly higher elevations, however.
The weather was dry until I got past Emigrant Lake. Air temperatures were still in 40s, so no danger of ice forming.
However, as I got higher, the rain turned to very wet snow. Still none of it was sticking to the pavement, so I drove on. And more importantly, there were no snow chain requirements. This is the top of a pass. You can tell that because there is a brake check area for trucks for the long drive down.
As I got into California and mostly through their mountains, it became foggy in the higher elevations.
But back to almost dry pavement!
Somewhere behind these clouds is the top of Mount Shasta.
You can see a little bit more of it here.
FINALLY, sunny skies and relatively warm weather, mostly in the 50s and 60s instead of 30s and 40s! Yea! I like this place because of the huge paved sites and also because it is so close to my son's home.
I have not had much free time with all the grading I have to do for my online class, but I did take time to clean one of my underneath storage bins. I need to do this every few months so I do not accumulate too much stuff and also so I can find things I need. This bin has a lot of chemicals and cleaning supplies, along with some tools. Instead of things just rolling around and spilling, I put things in a couple of plastic bins I had.
