Tuesday, October 23, 2007
We went down, down, down to Indian Grinding Rock for a couple of days. Near Pine Grove on Highway 88, Indian Grinding Rock is a lovely little state park with 23 campsites set in the trees. Our campsite was about 10 yards from the path around the park. Indian Grinding Rock is a very large rock where Miwok Indians ground their corn and acorns and led a pretty good life, from what we could see. We wandered the area late in the afternoon, and invented a game, bouncing acorns to see if we could hit a fence. It was that slow. The sun sank low, the birds and deer were grazing nearby, it was idyllic. 

Yesterday, we found the tiny town of Volcano, that had some walls covered with beautiful Virginia Creeper. We tried driving up Highway 88 all the way to 8.000 feet, looking for good color, but all we found were great hamburgers. Luckily, that was sufficient for us.

This morning we visited the Empire Mine State Historic Park. The extensive grounds include the Empire Mine, the oldest, richest hardrock gold mine in California. The owners must have done well because there’s a beautiful little stone “cottage” surrounded by lovely grounds. There is a fair remnant of the mining operation as well, including an extreme downhill view of the mine shaft, and a picture of the sled-like vehicle that the miners rode down into the mine. We went for a hike but many of the trails to other nearby mines are closed because of elevated levels of arsenic and other metals. There was heavy equipment in one area that was moving earth on a large scale. The mines closed in 1956, so this is damage that goes back that far.

Saturday, October 27, 2007
Yesterday, we checked out of the RV Park, abandoned our RV on a little side road in Plymouth, and drove out to Karmere Winery to get our zin. Once again, the Hayley Zinfandel was wonderful, with an edge of sweetness. Satisfied, we headed north towards Grass Valley. Highway 49 is pretty windy and small from Plymouth, through Placerville and Auburn, but quite pretty. We got to the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, with a resident rooster who woke Dave up this morning. We found out that Oscar, the rooster, has chosen to reside at the fairgrounds for 5 years, that he’s been shot, mauled by dogs and that both hawks and raccoon’s go after him. Sympathetic people periodically drop off a hen or two to assuage his loneliness, but they tend to disappear after a week or two because they’re not as wily as Oscar. There’s additional entertainment at our fairground camp. There’s also the “Tabernacle Altar” AKA the “Messiah’s Mansion”, a series of tents in which you can take a 75-minute tour of the Old Testament. We skipped that.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
We had a lazy day on Sunday. We read in bed for a while, ate a decadent breakfast of French Toast and bacon and drove off to look for fall color. We found the covered bridge at Bridgeport, CA, the longest covered bridge in the U.S. It crosses the Yuba River, and because it allowed traffic to flow from the gold fields to supply towns, and because it’s owner charged a steep toll, it paid well. We drove into Nevada City, looking for ice cream and couldn’t find any ice cream parlors. There’s a summer business for someone. The town is beautiful, with the various kinds of trees, in red, orange, gold, yellow and tan. After a while, I stopped photographing and began to collect leaves. I just hope I’m not transporting some horrible, exotic pest home on them.

On Monday, we headed towards Graeagle to visit John and Sandy Petrin. I started my Customs career at Travis AFB with John in 1971. John and Sandy built their dream house in the Sierras and quite a house it is, with a cathedral-altitude ceiling and world-class views from the many windows. We had a lovely dinner with John’s uncle and aunt and Tom and Sue O’Brien. Tom was, at one level or another, my boss for many years. As we all talked about our travels, which are numerous, I thought about how lucky we were to be healthy and energetic and retired (even though Tom and John aren’t completely retired). It is so wonderful to have time to do the things you love, no matter what they are.

We left late today and made the trek home. It was so easy coming down Interstate 80, and very nice to be able to “head home” in one afternoon. So we’ll be signing off the blog for now and wish everyone happy holidays.

P.S. We found out that our friends, Don and Janet, in Utah, got married on the big stump at Calaveras Big Trees. Had we known at the time, we would have toasted you there, but will instead toast you here in San Francisco.