DAY ONE - SF Bay Area to Calico Ghost Town

DAY ONE - June 10, 2012 

San Francisco Bay Area to Calico Ghost Town (Yermo, CA)

Tried getting on the road at 5:45a.m. but ended up leaving at 6:30 LOL. We had to make a stop 1 hour later because well, yup, little old me forgot to fill up my gas tank before leaving...No laughing...ok you can laugh, we did. 

We took our first break near Los Banos.  Ben and I had a great time picking bugs off big rigs for his bug collection.  Ben is doing great today, very clear! 

We then stopped in Buttonwillow.  Tim and I had a fun playing tag!  We took a little jaunt to see the Buttonwillow Cow...the kids LOVED this!  That was one big cow... 20ft I would say.

Back on the Road for another hour or so.  We took a side road (ok, so we got a little lost and we had to get ourselves back on track.)  We saw the Tehachapi Pass.  The train track wraps around itself in the canyon.  If you are lucky enough to be there when a train is going by it is really interesting to watch.  This was cool but unfortunately a train wasn't going by at that time...that would have been really neat to see a train wrap around itself.  

Next Stop Calico Ghost Town!  Calico is an old ghost town that is up on a hill with mines all around and interesting rock formations.  The town is a San Bernadino park and it is near the town of Yermo, CA.


We made it to Calico!  Mom (Mary Kay) made us all a yummy dinner.

Luke decided to help Ben build his bug collection by trying to catch these really cool looking bugs. It was quite a sight to see him running around with the net trying to catch it.  When we thought the bugs had won at the last moment Luke made a huge leap and caught one but then slipped and fell.  Luke is now on record with our first injury of the trip.  He scuffed up his knee pretty good.  But he did catch that Bug!  

After we got Luke bandaged up, Luke, Amanda and George went to hike these really cool rocks out here.  

Coletta, Mom, Ben, Tim and I went to the Calico Cemetery.  I guess the ground is mostly rock because they buried their people by piling rocks on top.  There were all kinds of little things people left on their graves. 

You should see the stars out here.  WOW!  Coletta and Amanda got up at 2am to enjoy them.


Stats:
1 boo boo
Notes from Grandma: Sooooo glad Lucy, my motorhome, also known by the grandchildren as "the Beast, is performing just flawlessly.  And I think she has earned her gas....  She takes the hills a little slowly but does pass a lot of big rigs!

Calico was great and NO wind to speak of!!  2 years ago it literally blew rocks at the cabin door at night.  The rock formations were as great as they were last year.