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 glitz and glamour,
seemed run-down
this was the windiest place I’d ever been
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.