Monday, August 4, 2008

"Epic Adventure Day 2 Part 1 ~ Calico Ghost Town!"

The next day, we left LA for Las Vegas. Olivera introduced a place called Calico Ghost Town as something I might be interested in. Well, since it's along the way, why not. Also, Vegas is only attractive at night, so we had to fill up the day time!

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Point A (LA) to Point B (Calico)
The thing about California is that there's such a diverse range of landscape in a single state. As we drove further from LA, we can see mountain ranges...

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complete with a scenic highway travelling through the ranges. And further along, the cooling weather turns ....

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... barren. And I mean like a desert! Dry, hot, desolate... Petrol was scarce along the way, so the price went up really high, even till USD4.99 per gallon! The drive was interesting though, and after about 2.5 hours we reached Calico...

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"Welcome to Ghost Town. Stay and Play!"

Calico was a thriving town setup to mine gold and silver during its heydays. Eventually, the ore dried up and it became a 'ghost town'. Though it isn't actually deserted now that it's been made into a tourist attraction!

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One of the old carriages. There's a lot of these 'cowboy' era artifacts to snap, so... bear with me! :P

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Sheriff's office and the lock-up :D
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There's even a cowboy gun-fight show...
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A closed down mine... nah, they don't let us in there, too dangerous!

There's a scenic point to hike to get a spectacular view of the mountains...
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It's such a bleak place with no plants and water... but there's a unique beauty to it all, the sand, rocks...

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just like in a cowboy movie ;)

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Funny looking hut... with a Chinese bath tub... :-S racist....

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Hiding in the shade.... because the temperature was 36 degrees C!!! We could barely last 5 minutes walking out in the searing hot sun. The place felt like the heater is turned on full blast in your face! You'd wonder how these guys work in this environment. Not even Penang at noon can compare with this heat.

After less than 2 hours, we quickly packed and rushed back to the car to get water supplies... Man, what an experience first time being IN a desert....

Next, we continue the drive to....

Hoover Dam!

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