I don't make a habit of visiting ghost towns, so in all honesty, I don't know how this one ranks among others. I can tell you that I pictured something like the old west sets and facades in the backlot of Universal Studios, if you've ever seen those, except that of course, they would be real and genuinely old.
As it happens with Calico, that isn't really the case. Yes, the location was a small town back in the 1800's but much of it is gone. There remain some pieces of walls and such, but most everything there was reconstructed in the middle (or so) parts of the 1900's if I remember correctly.
That being said, the experience, much as with everything else in life is really what you make of it, and we had fun. The town is about 3 miles off the freeway exit and it should be noted that there is a $6 per person charge to enter. Something I don't think we realized before we got there, but paid nonetheless.
Almost the entire town is comprised of souvenir shops of some sort or another: Soap, candles, Native American knick knacks, food, and so on. A couple of the buildings are dedicated to the history of the town, like the firehouse which has a few old carts in it, and another building which shows you (with mannequins in much need of dusting) the way of life at the time, but again, primarily it's souvenir shops.
For an extra couple of bucks you can take a "tour" which promises a weird and whacky experience. I couldn't tell you what the experience was though because while we would have done it, no one ever showed up at the ticket counter to take our money despite walking by it about three times.
You can climb the hills and look at the view, which we did. And again, for another $2 you can walk through an actual old mine, which we did. It brought to mind the Big Thunder Mountain ride at Disneyland, minus the actual ride. For another few bucks you can ride a little train that takes you around the area and probably tells you more about the mining that was done there, but that one we did not do. We did wave at the passengers while standing atop the hills though.
I think possibly, our favorite thing was the best worst thing we've ever paid a quarter to see. It was this guy, sitting outside one of the souvenir shops (I think it was the "book" shop).
For a quarter you could "watch him suffer" which of course we could not help but be curious about, so we put in our quarter. He began to shake and speak in an old tired voice, saying something to the effect of how old and tired he was. Classic. We could not stop laughing. And no, they won't give you your quarter back when you realize that's all he's going to do.
We expected to be there no more than an hour but as it turned out, we were there for two. Like I said, we wanted to make the most of it and our six bucks, and I think we did.
