A dusty, dirty, awesome weekend in a ghost town

I spent the past weekend camping with the Scouts in Calico Ghost Town. Can't say that's something I would've ever done pre-kid, but turns out, I had a really great time.

Calico's out in the high desert, just past Barstow. The campground is not much to look at, mostly hard-packed dirt, rocks and a couple trees (not in our sites). But the mountains surrounding it are gorgeous, and the wildlife is pretty cool. (And once again, the foxes stole a loaf of bread!) 

 I thought these were really big quail--they were actually partridges. And there weren't even any pear trees around!

 
I was very excited to try out my new tent and double-high air mattress on this trip. 

Home sweet home.

Mark still worried that my tent has no rain fly, but I explained that I don't need a rain fly because if it's rains, I'M GOING HOME. To my warm, enclosed house. I have nothing to prove to Mother Nature--the first time she rains on me, I'm going home. End of story.

The tent was AWESOME! The description and accompanying video swear you can set the whole thing up in under a minute. Because I'm not the most advanced camper and because I'm bad at almost everything, I convinced myself I could probably pitch the tent in maybe 10 or 15 minutes. But the tent lived up to its hype--I honestly had the tent assembled and ready to go in less than a minute. BEST. TENT. EVER.

Not as impressive? The wimpy little tent stakes.

Yeah, those stakes and that little rock will keep this tent grounded.

I'm sure they work just fine in grass, but there's not one blade of grass in Calico. I wasn't even going to bother with the stakes, until I remembered the crazy wind that sent all the tents flying last year. So I improvised--Calico doesn't have grass but it has plenty of big boulders. I chucked the stakes, and carried in a bunch of giant rocks, distributing them around the tent floor.

Stop judging. My tent did NOT fly away, so this was brilliant.

The troop spent the afternoon hiking to some nearby caves, which meant all the boys and most of the adults were gone. I briefly thought about joining them, then laughed at that silly notion and set out my chair instead. I spent a quiet afternoon with a good friend I rarely see anymore because of my hectic schedule--my People magazine. I tore through four issues before the boys came back--it was an unexpected luxury.

I ventured up to the boys' camp around dinner time to take some photos. 

Scout camp.

The Scouts were preparing their meals when I interrupted a discussion on hygiene.

"Use soap and water to wash your hands," one boy told another. "Don't use hand sanitizer!"

"It's all the same," the second boy retorted.

"No, it's not!" the first boy said. "Use soap and water. You're making burgers with your hands--we don't want them to taste like hand sanitizer!"

I was suddenly grateful we had our own cooks down at the adult camp. 

 

Young boys and a full-size propane tank. Nothing to worry about, here, right? 

Turns out the boys weren't making just any old burgers--they were making "manburgers." They distributed about a pound of beef to each boy, who then shaped it into a giant manburger. I wondered how long it takes to grill a manburger (hopefully not as long as a hobo packet--Mark once created a monstrous meatball that took over an hour to cook!).

After they ate, the boys cleaned up. They were trying to hurry, so they could go into town, but I watched as a steady stream of boys trickled past our camp. One unlucky guy, Dan, had a nosebleed, which traumatized him a bit. Another boy walked by carrying something long and heavy. An adult leader also saw him and immediately boomed, "What is that and why are you carrying it?"

"I dunno," the boy shrugged. "I just found it."

Turns out it was a thick metal pipe, as tall as the boy was, painted and filled with cement. It fit snugly into the ground by the bathrooms, a barricade to keep cars from backing into the building. I can't believe that kid carried that heavy thing as far as he did--and I have no idea what he was going to do with it if he'd gotten it up to camp!


The leader then decided to check on the boys, to make sure "no one was lighting anything on fire"--a very real concern. Always an adventure, Scout camping.

After dinner, we followed the boys into town. There weren't any of the crazy characters that usually roamed the town--no big tall guy, or sneaky chainsaw guy. I was a little bummed at that--my favorite Calico memory is of the chainsaw guy stalking and scaring my friend Karen. :-)

The boys skipped the dance this year, instead heading over to the saloon. It's a little unsettling to see them all in the saloon, moseying up to the bar and downing dark bottles of root beer, rubber band guns at their sides. It's what I imagine the Wild West would be like if had it been tamed by Boy Scouts.

I returned to camp exhausted, but got a great night's sleep on my new double-high air mattress. I felt like a bit of a diva, but since I woke up happy and well-rested, who cares. The only problem was that I put the tent and mattress up so quickly, it was on a bit of a slope, and I almost rolled off the bed at first. (I caught myself quickly since a double-high mattress + falling three feet onto rocky, hard dirt = PAIN.)

The next morning, the Scouts packed up their tents and cleaned the camp in record time. Seriously, I don't know what got in to them (maturity? experience? the lure of In N Out burgers for lunch?) but the whole place was packed and ready to go by 10 a.m., a new record. We ended the camping part with a group circle, where the boys and parents all named one thing they were grateful for. Food was a popular choice, as was the time spent with family and friends. One Scout looked pointedly (OK, accusingly) at the older Scouts, and said he was thankful the big boys didn't wander off trail this year, and that they actually finished their hike to the caves. But my favorite was Dan, who said he was thankful he didn't bleed out from his bloody nose.

After finishing the thankful circle with a laugh, it was on to rocket time!

We drove down to a nearby dry lake bed to shoot off the rockets. Mark broke off two of his rocket's wings when he packed for the trip. He then sat on the rocket, bending the nose and breaking off all the other wings. He also managed to glue the parachute into the nose, so by the time we got there, his rocket was both a mess and a danger. The troop leader refused to let him fly it.

Menace to society--the rocket, I mean.

"It's too dangerous," he told Mark. "It'll come down at us like a missile." That is, if the engine didn't burn through the parachute and rocket first...and come down at us as a flaming missile!

Since Mark had engines, the leader lent him another rocket, so the trip wasn't a total loss. Besides, it was fun to watch the other boys. They'd get the whole group to count down from 10, then they'd launch the rocket, while the younger boys raced down the lake bed to catch it. 

 Scouts warming up--they were ready to chase down those rockets.

 

 Lift off!

The race to catch it before it lands with a thud.

Dan and his brother realized a little late that the rockets don't come assembled. Poor kid sat on the cracked, dry dirt with a million little rocket pieces before him, looking kinda sad and lost.

But Scouts look out for each other. The older Scouts quickly assembled his rocket, forgetting only one minor piece--the parachute. We watched Dan's rocket soar straight up, and everyone cheered. Then they gasped, realizing the parachute didn't open, held their breath, and watched as the rocket turned down and shot back to the Earth even faster. I realized then what the troop leader meant about Mark's rocket turning in to a missile.

The rocket crashed into the ground at breakneck speed, and the boys cheered even louder. They ran to retrieve it, and brought back a dented, zig-zagged rocket. The nose had a new Z-shape, and looked a little like a lightning bolt. They boys excitedly asked if they could launch it again. One leader said no, the other said "Tape it up straight," and two minutes later, it soared into the air again, and then into oblivion somewhere out by the highway. No one could top that, so we decided to leave on a high note.

Mark and I returned home filthy and tired, but happy. Although we spent most of the trip in passing, we both had a blast. Mark got to be a grubby boy, playing in the dirt with his friends, and I got to hang out with the cool Scout parents. It was an altogether awesome trip.

The haunting begins...

I spent the past weekend in a ghost town, with a bunch of creepy ghouls skulking about. Oh yeah, the Boy Scouts were there, too.

It was the annual Boy Scout camping trip in Calico. Calico's an old desert mining town that's been transformed into a touristy ghost town. Usually, "ghost town" refers to the fact the mines were abandoned long ago, but during the two weekends before Halloween, it becomes a more literal description--it's a real ghost town, filled with monsters and other scary things!

We got to town late Friday night. We had a few glitches--due to traffic, it took us four hours to get there (instead of two). Once there, we began setting up Martha's tent in the dark, only to realize she didn't have any tent poles. Luckily, I also had a tent, so I just offered to share. And then, approximately five minutes after handing Mark a walkie talkie in case of late-night low blood sugars (he was in a different camp), I lost my walkie talkie. I was super bummed, because it turns out they don't work so well as singular devices. But the worst part was explaining to Mark that I'd lost it (usually, he's the one who loses everything). His initial reaction of concern was quickly replaced by a smirk (and relief) he wasn't the loser.

The good news is, we got all the bad news out of the way that first night. Once the sun came up, we started a whole new day, and everything turned out much better.
The boys were chattering excitedly about a visitor. Apparently, somebody left a loaf of bread out, and a fox ate it. The story quickly changed as it passed through the group, from "There was a fox" to "I saw the fox!" It was alternately described as small and reddish, about the size of a dog, and big and brown, like a wolf.

I noticed in the daylight that the rock structure behind us resembled the top half of a skull. It was soooooo cool!

I met up with my friends Karen and Greg, who'd arrived while we were sleeping. They made a fantastic French toast breakfast, and I marveled at how much better food always tastes when you're camping. They joined the Scouts after breakfast for a hike in the hills, and I returned to my camp to enjoy the momentary peace and quiet.

Calico's in the high desert, so I'd mentally prepared myself to sweat in the projected 90 degree weather. But a nice little breeze rolled through the campground, and kept everything cool. While the Scouts were gone, I crept into the leaders' camp to sit under their tree and read in the shade. It was quiet, breezy, and I was completely happy.

As I was reading, a group of Scout parents passed by.

"Come on, Heather, we're going to town!" they shouted. How could I resist?

It's a short hike to town, maybe half a mile. It's easy during the day, but there's one section that's pitch black and pretty scary at night. I was glad it was daytime.

We passed through the campground, admiring all the sites decorated with Halloween gear. There were graveyards, cauldrons, inflatable pumpkins and all sorts of spooky stuff. Later on, at dusk, costumed trick or treaters ran wildly through the camp.

The town was already filled with scary people--we followed this group in.  

But the decorations weren't just limited to people. The buildings were decked out, too, all along main Street. This one even had a giant spider on it, who was about to eat an orange stuffed cat. The whole scene freaked me out, as the cat bore a striking resemblance to our beloved little kitten Fernando.

We wandered through town, drinking sarsaparillas and inching our way through the mystery house. The house, built at all different angles, severely messes with your head and your balance. At one point, I gripped a handrail tightly, convinced that gravity had failed me, and that I was about to fall down.

By the time we got back to camp that afternoon, the gentle breeze had grown into full-force hurricane winds. We rescued our neighbor's tent, which flew in to the mountain side, and then reinforced our own tent with as many big rocks as we could find. Our tent didn't blow away, but I spent the rest of the night tripping over rocks.

The Scouts went up to town, returning in a steady trickle over the next couple hours. They all returned carrying the same two things: brown sarsaparilla bottles (which looked like real beer bottles) and toy guns. Hey, what do you expect, it is the Wild West, after all! (Mark came back with candy cigarettes. Apparently, his vice is smoking, not drinking and shooting.)

After a nice dinner, we all walked back to town for the evening haunting and a comedy hypnosis show. (I'm not sure what hypnosis has to do with Halloween, I just went with it, but the boys loved it.)

I thought our boys went home after the show, but somehow, we beat them back. At one point, Martha and I went looking for them, but we stopped when we got to the super dark valley. I had a wimpy little lantern that did not shine light anywhere past three inches of my face, and Martha held only a wimpy little glow stick. We stood in the dark, contemplating our next move. All I could think about was last year, and how a coyote had walked this trail just moments before we did.

"Maybe I'll just pick up a rock," Martha said casually. Then she bent down and picked up another, and I couldn't blame her.

In what may not have been my proudest maternal moment, we decided not to go any further. We reasoned the boys would be much safer traveling through the darkness because A) they are loud, and would surely scare away any predators, B) they had much brighter flashlights than we did, and C) they were not scaredy cats like us. A and B turned out to be true, and C probably did, too, though no boy would admit to it.

When we woke up Sunday morning, the wind was in full force. It was whipping everything around, including us. We tried packing up the tent and tarp, but the winds were blowing them around so hard we just couldn't. I crammed them into my duffel bag to repack at home.

Martha and I broke down our camp fairly quickly, then wandered over to the Scout camp to see how they were faring.

Their tents were much bigger than ours, but the boys were much smaller. The wind was tossing them all around pretty good. I watched some older Scouts wrestle their tents. Then I turned to see how our boys were doing. Mark and his friend Sean were gripping the ends of the tent's rain cover. But instead of packing it away, they were running. The wind was blowing straight into the rain cover, puffing it up like a parachute, and the boys were cracking up.

Eventually, the Scout leaders gave up on the slacker boys and the gusty winds. They ordered the boys to do as we did, cramming the tents into the cars, to repack when we got home.

The trip always ends at a dry lake bed, shooting off rockets. Because of the weather, the troop decided to shoot off just a few token rockets, most of which broke or were carried off by the wind. We drove by the swirling dust storm over the lake bed, and decided to keep on driving--our teeth and skin were already gritty with sand, and we just wanted to go home to a hot shower.

The trip ended as it always does, with the exhausted Scouts unloading the trucks back at the church, and the parents yelling at them to hurry up. I'm glad we showed up, because it turns out one of the leaders found my walkie talkie and returned it. 

It was the perfect way to end the trip--definitely on a high note.