Calico Ghost Town - Myrons Day

Calico Ghost Town is located just outside Barstow, California. About 2 hours from Shanes parents, but we didn't have any plans today, so off we set. Nathan decided to stay with the grandparents to catch up on homework. Good kid.
The first and last time I visited this Ghost Town was as a newlywed. We stopped on our way up to Utah to "settle". :) Back then....they used to have fun gun shows but now due to liability insurance, they had to put the brakes on all the fun. Bummer.
Myron LOVES rocks, exploring, history etc. So, this was pretty much his dream come true.
The ghost town is so neat. Eerie but neat. The fact that 1800 or so people lived here at one point is down right....."ghostly". :) It wasn't hard to imagine people walking around, doing their shopping, going to church....wait....there wasn't a church there! This might explain the 80 saloons that took up the town. The town itself had at one point, 300 buildings. The town caught fire twice and had to be rebuilt. Wow.
This little bath house made a great 3 little piggies house.
The underground mine tour. Quite fun actually!

We hiked up a little way and I just couldn't help but take photos of Mae in her sky colored dress. Truth be told, I snapped over 250 photos throughout the day. Couldn't help it. The scenery couldn't be lovelier.

It was incredibly windy. Thank heavens because it was around 85 degrees out.

A look at the town below. I would love to live back then.....for a week.
Love this below shot.

Rylan had just as much fun as Myron. They found all sorts of cool rocks and arrowheads.

This house below was made of adobe and bottles.
The train ride was very informative and neat.
Which would you choose? Apparently back then....most hardly EVER bathed! Stinky!


I REALLY wanted some photos of Mae in front of the beautiful old school, but this was when she decided to have a melt down so....this is what we ended up with. I do really like this shot still.
Enjoying some Sarsparilla. Yum.
On the way home, we stopped by Vasquez to do some hiking. Shane used to come here as a child. It was incredible.



And that's all she wrote. We are heading to the LA Zoo tomorrow and to the Olivers on Saturday now. Ciao!

Hollywood- Rylans Day

Rylan REALLY really really REALLY wanted to visit some museums while we are on vacation. Lucky him (and us) the older boys wanted to stay at Gmas and pas while we went to HOLLYWOOD!!


We hit the best museums around! The Wax Museum, Guiness book of World Records and Ripleys Believe it or NOT! (Yawn) But....Rylan loved it all.

I love the hands behind his back. He is always so contemplative. Today was the 2nd best day so far he told us. Nothing touches Knotts Berry Farm. Not even Disneyland apparently!

After the museums and walk of fame etc. We bought a map of the stars homes and took off in our rental van to find them!

We gave up trying to figure out whos home was whos. Did I say that right? I am tired!

Anyhow.....the houses were so old and neat, we just took photos of the houses we liked.

The below photo is HALF of the house!
LOVED the bottom house. So modern yet natural.
Rodeo drive. I wasn't very impressed.
After half the day of looking for a respectable Mexican restaurant. We FINALLY found one on our way home. The food was good. Not WOW out of this world good, but it was good enough.

Rylan had a great day. So did we. Tomorrow.....well.....I wanted to go to Tijuana but Shanes parents say it is too dangerous. SCOFF. What? So....I am not sure what is up for tomorrow. LA Zoo? Stay tuned!

Knotts Berry Farm- Day....? Who knows anymore.

Now that we have a rental van...we can go wherever we like. Today we were urged by Shanes parents to go to Knotts Berry farm. They even treated us! How could we turn them down?


Shane made it through one ride and said....."no more"! The ACCELERATOR was too much for him.

I hate Rollercoasters. I hate the sensation of falling.....The below photo was snapped by their photographers. This must have been right before I yelled " I HAAAATE you Shane" for tricking me into going on this "kiddie ride". Yeaaah......just because they let Mae on, doesn't mean that it isn't um....scary!



I really just wanted the bottom photo but being on a MAC means that I don't know the delete blog settings on this. I can't just delete like I can on a pc. Anyhow...boring random info. Love the photo below.
The park was virtually empty and there were NO lines on ANY rides!! Yay! We spent all day from 10-6 at the park and let the boys go off on their own nearly the whole time. Honestly, we had more fun here than Disneyland.
Mae and Snoopy. I wish it didn't take so stinkin long to upload videos. They had quite a special relationship. Since it was so slow, Mae kept going over to Snoopy to play little games.
Mae on the kiddie roller coaster. She was fearless!
It was nearly 90 degrees today. We had an amazing time. Probably the best day yet.

Tomorrow it is off to the LA zoo. Thursday....no plans and then Friday we are off to the Olivers!

Ps- If you'd like to see all the photos from today (there are some good ones) click or paste the below link.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=335632&id=646943108