Playing Tourist!

So, it's not a major site to see if you make it out to the west coast, but Sunday Zach and I went to Calico Ghost Town. It's right near Barstow and Yermo, so only about 40 minutes away from post. I think it's the closest tourist-type thing to post. Not much here, really, but having grown up in SE Virginia (the Colonial Triangle area), the eras of American history I'm most familiar with are those from the 1600s and 1700s. Oh, and a good chunk of Civil War era stuff too. But, once you get into the late 1800s and all this moving west nonsense, I'm pretty unfamiliar. So, it was neat seeing some of the exhibits about silver mining and the mining towns back then.

For example, silver processing was almost as bad for you as the mining itself. No cave-ins to worry about, but several processes used mercury to refine the silver, and then a different step found sodium cyanide was the most effective chemical. So, I guess the choice was death from cave-in or death from long-term chemical exposure. Fun choices!

This picture is in Maggie Mine, one section of about 30 miles of mine passages in the Calico area. The story behind Maggie Mine was that two brothers bought it, worked it, and gave up when they weren't finding anything. Then a 10-yr-old school boy found a rock with silver ore in it about 50 feet higher on the mountain. The claim was purchased again, and the new owners actually punched through to the Maggie Mine passage, because it was so close. Talk about frustrating!! This particular point in the mine is called Deadman's Draught. Based on the configuration of the mine, this area was dynamited out, and not supported by timbers as other areas were, putting it at a higher risk of cave-in. Don't worry - those are dummies there in the picture! What we liked was that those pipes you see in the photo are wooded. The mines didn't use metal pipes because the water was so mineral-laden that the metal pipes corroded too fast!!

The town also did a lot of Old West sort of themed stuff. For example, they had a gun show scheduled several times during the day. In this picture below, we're standing with the guy from the gun show. He also trains actors working on Western movies how to handle and fire the gun, or acts as a stunt double for them. Was pretty neat to see it in person - he was very fast!

The best part of the day was pulling up in the parking lot and seeing a pair of cars with the NSS sticker on them! Made it totally worth the trip too, because it was the San Bernadino Cave Search and Rescue team!! The CSR team works through the San Bernadino County Sheriff's office, and was meeting with the Barstow Mine Rescue team at Calico on Sunday! So we made our way up the hill to where they were meeting and introduced ourselves. :) Apparently San Bernadino County, although being the largest county in the US, has only 1 limestone cave and a handful of lava tubes. Seems you have to go up to the Sequoia area or over to AZ to get to some good caving. Still, the county does have a lot of mines, and a lot of idiot people who "are just taking a look around" and end up getting themselves into trouble. So the Mine Rescue group is actually rather active, and Zach and I are looking at heading to one of their meetings in the future, see what's up!

So yes, Calico was pretty small, but it was a nice little detour and it felt really good to be getting out and seeing some of where we live now. What makes this area unique, what makes this area famous (or did in the past, as the case may be). Makes me feel more a part of where I'm living, y'know? I get to appreciate what's here while I'm here, and then we'll learn what makes our new duty station unique when we get there in a couple years. Until then, there will be lots of pictures of the desert :)