across the street they’ve nailed the curtains

The Southwest is lousy with ghost towns.

Two Guns, AZ

At its peak, Two Guns was more than just a tourist stop on Route 66–it had a zoo, with mountain lions, bobcats and panthers, all penned in by mortar and chicken wire.  Woo-ee!

A lot of the places we saw are soon-to-be ghost towns.

Even Las Vegas, with all its glitter and doom, seemed run-down.

This was the windiest place I’d ever been, though the whole ride back felt like the world was being blown to pieces.

There was no more market, no place to eat.  Just a gas station, and two more, now-defunct.  Up the road was Rock-a-Hoola, a shuttered water park, an eerie sight.

Calico is a different kind of ghost town.  Once a silver mining town, it folded in the early 1900s, but was restored beginning in the ’50s by the founder of Knott’s Berry Farm.

Today it resembles a theme park more than a ghost town, a contradiction in terms.

In Arvin, we happened upon two coyotes crossing in the gloaming.

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