Off 1-15, 7 miles East of Barstow. Genuine ghost towns, their ruined buildings inhabited only by wind-blown tumble-weed, are dotted across California. Like many of them, Calico thrived in the late 1800s when five years of mining in the nearby Calico Hills yielded $86 million worth of precious minerals, notably gold and silver. To all intents and purposes, as soon as the mines were finished, so was the town, and what’s here now is a re-creation of an Old West boom town, complete with reconstructed saloon, general store and schoolhouse. The park is enjoyable and popular, but the accent is firmly on entertainment rather than historical accuracy.

Detour – Calico Early Man Site

Off 1-15, 7 miles East. A parched spot in the Calico Hills might be the last place you’d expect decades of established historical thinking to be overturned. However, over the last 40 years, archaeological excavations here have revealed scrapers, cutters, saws, axes, and other primitive tools believed to be 200,000 years old. If the age is correct, this is the oldest known site of human habitation in North America and one that proves settlement took place long before the arrival of the people previously thought to have been the first Americans (those who crossed the Bering Straits from Siberia 10-20,000 years ago). Marked walkways make the dig-site accessible, though there is more to be gleaned in the visitors’ centre and museum, where many of the finds are exhibited and their significance explained.