Day 2 -- Calico, CA to Las Vegas, NV

Argh! Technology is not helping me today! I just typed a long post about Day 2 and it disappeared. Can't face it now -- will update later!

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Later (edited on 6/19/2011)



I woke up at dawn.  Little birds were singing and tiny bats were clearing the bugs from the sky before retiring for the day.  A flock of Chukar cruised through the campground, foraging in the sagebrush.  It’s a beautiful little campground - especially since it is so empty.  If it were full, we’d be packed in like sardines.











We got up and got an early start at the ghost town.  Calico was a mining town that had a short run during the late 1800’s.  Knotts Berry Farm bought it and turned it into a preserved town.  There are lots of little shops.  It’s charming . . . Especially at 8:30am when you have the place to yourself.  We were finished and leaving just as the first tour buses rolled in.

We hitched up and drove off into our first real heat of the day.  We stopped in Baker, CA for gas and lunch. The gas was crazy expensive.  And, then we hit a HUGE grade heading for Vegas.  Towing the car, Greg was doing It at 25 mph - ouch.  There was another grade after that so we unhitched the car and he zipped up it at 50 mph.  Big difference.  I was delighted because the AC works in my car!  :) We had some real heat on this trip.  When we stopped at the bottom of the big grade to unhitch the car, the temperature was 110F at the top of that summit (4,730 ft), it had gone down to 89F.  We’ve decided we like altitude!





We made it to Vegas around 3pm and stayed at the KOA Circus Circus.  It’s a big parking lot -- hot and expensive.  But, we paid for 50 amp service so we were able to run the air conditioners and had a pretty comfortable night.





We have good friends who live in Vegas:  Tom and Val Wucherer.  We went to their house for dinner that night -- the kids swam in their pool and watched movies while we caught up on what’s been going on in our lives.  Greg and I stayed one night on our honeymoon at Tom’s place in Vegas 23 years ago -- it was nice to see all the changes in our lives.

We drove home to our home-on-wheels through the Vegas lights. Beautiful but very otherworldly and out of place and time.