OK. No more offroad trips in search of ghosted ghost towns. From now on I am only sticking to government-approved, tourist friendly ghost towns. I drive a Camry for chrissakes. I shouldn’t be taking my poor two-wheel drive, four cylinder practical-mobile out on unmaintained roads straight up a one lane rockpile hacked out of the side of a friggin’ mountain. She just ain’t built for that sort of thing. Stupid non-existent ghost towns. Maybe there should be two types of ghost town: those that have remnants – call ’em ecto towns – and those that have no remains – they can be ghost towns.
Things were looking up after I got through with ninety minutes of high-stress dodging of sharp rocks and trigger-happy prospectors in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. The Phillies were well ahead and I was up in the Arizona high country. Suddenly the smell of pine filled the air. Grass was growing on the side of the road. The temperature dropped by twenty degrees. Life was looking up.
Sadly, my ultimate destination was Prescott, AZ – home of the Rough Riders. At first I was pissed off. This might have been a really cool town until it was overrun by yuppies, and hipsters, and artists. Rotten swine. But then I read that the famous Bucky O’Neill was a newspaperman. And Prescott was always pretty much filled with rich yuppies and dilettantes. Hellfire and damnation. There just ain’t no safe place on the planet.