Calico is a silver mining ghost town.

We checked on our favorite spots - like this house built from bottles.

Our New Year's trip was planned from the point of desperation. On locations where it would be needed (e.g. at Kirkwood), snow was not forecast. On the other hand, deserts, where our trip was aimed, was preparing for a large snow storm. In the end we came up with lipstick-on-a-pig deal — we would try to make it to Flagstaff, Arizona, where are friends live, before the storm hits. There, we wait out the storm, and ski in the local resort; once the storm passes, we'd drive back home. True, it's a bit far to just go skiing, but on the other hand we could pack it all into our bus, for we have not planned crossing any mountain passes.

Hippo went still to work on Monday; we had a dinner together and reached Tehachapi before midnight. With a complication, for a confused senior at the hotel's desk gave us a smoking room, which we had to change, thus delaying our collapse into beds.

A typical Calico - a house wedged under a rock so that no roof needed to be built.

A wall of clouds signaling the approaching storm front.

Everything went according to our plan in the morning; we had a breakfast and easily drove to our next stop, a ghost town named Calico. We had visited it a few years ago; this time the place sported a pleasant minimum number of tourists. We checked on our favorite attractions, and somewhat nervously watched the approaching wall of storm front clouds. By noon we got to Peggy Sue's, and driving to Flagstaff filled the rest of the day. It was a bit close, but we made it still on dry black top by dinner time, including a visit with Táňa and Tomáš, and planning for the next day — New Year's Eve.

We had to work out one bothersome problem on the way — after a recent exchange of a cracked windshield, an absence of seal had apparently developed on the lower edge (near the wipers), and air pressure during fast driving kept farting in the cabin. We were listening to Czech songs from a CD, while the bus rattled into it like a broken radio. What to do, in the middle of the desert? Eventually a Home Depo sign winked at us in Barstow; we purchased a silicone sealant, and smeared it on the edge of the window. Our singing-along to the country hits was, after that, hi-fi.

Highway to Phoenix.

The kids can make themselves useful while playing with snow.

We woke to about a foot of powder — and it was still falling. A fireplace was lit in the hotel lobby and huge windows gave us a view to a relatively large intersection, where cars swam with the dignity of battleships. We, too, embarked on a voyage; our bus has only a front wheel drive, but it sports a rather deep keel, and driving it in the snow was rather fun. One can even skid into a turn, for the rear always elegantly swings into the needed direction. We waded to Táňa, had a tea, distributed gloves, hats, and shovels to the children, and sent them to clean-up the deck. It was a sisyfic endeavor in the continuously falling snow, but it satisfied the kids' wish to dig in it. Táňa and I produced our cross country skis, heading to a local grove to a walk. We mostly had to make our own track, but the more entertaining it was — no crowds, machines, nothing. For the whole day we kept congratulating ourselves to this ingenious plan, which allowed us to reach Arizona while still dry, a few hours before they had closed all major highways for snow.

We got the kids a sleigh.

Senior citizens at New Year's Eve party.

In the evening we gathered around dinner, aiming to see a midnight "dropping the cone" in downtown. We waited for the kids to want to come along, but they faded out after ten, and so we dropped them off at our hotel room on the way. There were thick crowds in downtown, but I must say that we felt like a retirement home excursion — everybody else was at most half our age. Still we waited till midnight, saw the cone drop — and went to sleep. Arizona operates in a different time zone than California, and their midnight happened at our eleven o'clock — nevertheless we were quite done.

The New Year's morning was like from a glossy magazine: heaps of snow glittering in the sunshine, and we congratulated ourselves again how beautiful the weather turned out for our skiing. Alas, hubris precedes the fall — thousands of others were looking forward to ski in the same spot, while the local slopes consist of altogether three lifts. With an optimistic air, we crawled in traffic across the town to the turn-off to the ski resort. A large temporary sign stood there, announcing that only four wheel drives and cars with chains were allowed beyond. And so we stopped and obediently, observed by bored looks of four orange-vested guards, we put chains on our bus's tires. Filthy head to toe, with frost-bitten fingers, we were eager to get to skiing, only to be told by these enforces that they would only let local season pass holders up today. As much as I can rationalize such restriction, my head does not compute, why such a message could not be posted at the entrance, and WHY could they not tell us while watching us put chains on a car, which obviously WASN'T local, sporting a license plate of a different state. This small-town vindictiveness completely ruined our whole impression of Flagstaff.

Dingo feels like at home in the Red Rock Canyon desert.

Carol & Lisa.

We concluded to go for a back-up program and at least visit the edge of nearby Grand Canyon. We had to give up that thought after about a mile, when the line of cars in that direction simply stopped and would not move anymore. We were forced to humbly turn around and back to town. We tried to rent cross country skis for Hippo, to get out on the snow that way in the woods near Táňa's place. All we ever found were some sleighs for the children.

At Táňa's, we left the kids at a slope, I went cross-country skiing, and Hippo hiked. That was all we could do. A great dinner at a Greek restaurant improved our mood a bit, we said good-byes to our local friends, and went back to our hotel. There, Sid confirmed that he indeed must have lost his cell phone — he did not just forget it at the room, and it was nowhere in the car. As the last resort, I tried to call the number, so that we could hear it ring fallen through some cracks somewhere. To my surprise, a woman picked it up, saying she and her husband had found it. In the end they had left it at the register of a nearby gas station, and that was the only positive thing of the day. Hippo's phone could be a museum piece, and we would not have truly incurred much loss, but he's got his contact in its memory, and getting a new one would be a hassle.

It does not look it, but it's apparently freezing cold.

One family snapshot.

We had packed in the morning and although Táňa had lured us, saying that on a weekday we would CERTAINLY be allowed up to the mountain to ski, we were determined to leave. By noon we reached Las Vegas, and satisfied our outdoorsy desires in Red Rock Canyon. During our previous visits, we stopped on the first and second parking lot on the loop, respectively; this time we chose to explore another section of the park. We had selected Calico Pools, (according to a brochure) a relatively moderate trail among the rocks.

It had been a very pleasant surprise. Our desert dog dingo rejoiced that it looked like at home in Australia. Tom responded by rolling his eyes like a real pubescent, but we made him hike along anyway. A path soon turned into a rocky chaos, where you could scramble up; then we found the remnants of the snow storm. An otherwise dry creek bed contained some water leftovers — ice. Thanks to a desert weather, we felt warm in the sunshine, but the canyon itself apparently did not heat up above freezing even during the day.

The trail led us eventually up to the pools. First we had found a small puddle in the rocks, and later a sizable little pond. Past its frozen surface, one can scramble on the edge of the ridge, which offers an amazing view of the Red Rock sandstone — and of Las Vegas. Yet the sun kept dropping towards the horizon and with it the temperature. Dressed for an afternoon, only in sweat shirts, we picked up a brisk pace back to the car, to prevent complete stiffness.

Calico Pool.

A view from a ridge above the pool - Red Rock(s) front and center, Las Vegas behind.

It all nicely continued through an early dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant (our stomachs still insisting on Arizona time), and then we went to conquer the hobbits. Even Richard was back from his evening shift, and we could have a great chat. And if the kids did not fade towards their beds, we would sit and talk there still.

We hope that the New Year's experience does not represent a template for the rest of the year. A total collapse of our plans, and human malignity would not be a good thing to keep. Perhaps 2015 would focus its strengths on the positive — good friends, who offer shelter and help.