The First Day of the Rest of our Trip

Tuesday morning (Feb 28^th) was sunny!!  It’s the first time we’ve seen the sun since before Tulare.  Despite that all our long-sleeved shirts are clean again (thanks to Aunt Lorraine’s laundry facilities) it would be nice to wear some of the short-sleeved shirts we brought with us…

Green! San Bernadino area

We took the cats out for their daily walk through the park, then John & I headed out in the truck and gassed up and got water and groceries at a Mexican grocery store in downtown Long Beach.  The produce was amazing!!!  We bought cactus and fresh peppers and a bouquet of cilantro (!) so of course we had to stop by the shrimp counter on our way to the cash register… we can’t have cactus without sauteeing it with garlic and shrimp!!  We pulled out of Long Beach about 1 pm and of course it took us an hour to go about 20 miles… but once we got going, we made good time.

We're in the desert now - Cajon pass 4190 ft.

It was still very green through the San Bernadino Valley, but as we headed back up into the mountains, it started to look more like Nevada.  We got back onto the I-15 just shy of San Bernadino.  We haven’t been on the I-15 since Idaho 2-1/2 weeks ago!  The scenery was very beautiful and we enjoyed the drive.  We decided to stop early so the cats could have a good walk before dark, and we chose a Ghost Town called Calico, about 3 miles off the highway, near Barstow, CA.  It is amazing here! We’re camped just across the road from the actual Ghost Town and there is no one here. The topography reminds me a bit of Drumheller area – dry and hilly, with lots of stratigraphy showing.  

The cats were so excited when we drove in through the park gates!  I don’t know if it reminded them of somewhere else we’ve been or if they just were thrilled to be away from people, but they both were parading around in the truck and stepping all over us and each other, trying to get out and walk around.  We pulled up in one particular area of the campground and got out to check out the site (like we always do) and John left the truck running (like we always do) but I left my jacket in the truck with the spare set of keys in it (like I never do) and of course Sam and Tawny were all over the truck trying to get out while we walked around.  We think Sam stepped on the door lock… but it didn’t matter who it was… we were locked out with the truck running and the spare keys inside… hmmmm….  Luckily, my Honey is an engineer (and a clever one at that) so he pulled out some rebar from the back of the truck and I stood on one side of the truck and directed him while he moved the rebar around and finally connected with the door UNLOCK button… phew. Crisis averted. Thank goodness we had the side window cracked open.

Calico Ghost Town - note the name on the hillside (right)

Sammy, surveying the vista

Tawny, our little mountain goat

The cats were out of the truck and climbing the hills immediately.  They rolled in the dirt and ran hither and yon, and you would have thought they had been cooped up for days (which I guess in a way they had been). They were out for over an hour then we finally got them in and made dinner and enjoyed not having to draw the shades as there isn’t a soul around.

Wednesday (March 1^st) we were up early and the cats were pacing around the door so we took them out (with better shoes on today!) and we all hiked up into the hills for well over an hour.  It’s a beautiful sunny day again today and they were very adventuresome!  Even Sammy hiked all over the hills and we got some gorgeous views of the surrounding area.  I am very impressed with how well the cats do on these long hikes.

This was a serious climb for those cats!  Amazing!!

John, hiking home with the cats

There is no internet nor cell service here (the great spots all seem to have this in common!) so we are going to drive in to Barstow and see if we can’t find some wifi to upload this increasingly long blog post!  We haven’t had internet since the San Joaquin Valley…

Then we hope to do some sight-seeing!!