Our big vacation, such as it was this year, was to spend a week in Gold Rush Country and then to go the the Sacramento River Delta for a nephew's wedding in an Art Deco hotel.
We stayed in the Jumping Frog Motel in Angels Camp. The Mark Twain reference was nice, but we got little of the flavor of his times in the area on the trip. There was plenty of history in the area, though. The night we arrived we had a quick dinner and headed out of town to the Stevenot Winery, where we purchased tickets to see Richard III put on by the Murphy's Players. The performance was on a portable stage and the audience sat on the grass. The play was very well done, considering thet "Richard" had had a motorcycle accident 2 weeks before and that the repertory company could have used a few more members. Several actors, including some youngsters, had at least 3 roles. We enjoyed the cooling evening and the play.
The first full day we went to the Amador County Fair. It was a nice little county fair, rivaling some of the state fairs I have seen in the midwest. There was a nice demonstration of cutting lumber with a steam engine. The crafts were good and the art show was pretty good, though a little weak on photography. We enjoyed ourselves in a low key way. We did not really go into the carnival area, but enjoyed the agricultural and industrial displays. I thought that the wine garden would have been better in a county that has such a big wine industry.
We drove through the back country to the town of Volcano. It is a very small town that is heavy into the arts and tourists. There is also an outdoor theater there, but nothing was playing during our time in the area. We strolled along the main street, which turns 90 degrees. There were a few shops with touristy items and a number of restaurants. We stopped at a bar for a glass of wine and ended up saying for a couple of hours listening to a band play.
The next day we drove up Highway 49 through Jackson to Sutter Creek and Amador City. Both were relatively closed on a Monday, but we did see some nice antiques. We also saw nice antiques in Angel's Camp. Following that we went to the Amador County Museum in San Andreas. Again, there was a lot of information to digest on the Gold Rush and the people involved with it. San Andreas is more of a business center and is less touristy than the other cities we visited that day.
The most touristy place was a lot of fun. The town of Murphy's doesn't take itself too seriously. It is a pleasant little place with lots of antique stores and winery tasting rooms. It has a lot of historic buildings and a nice little museum that covered the gold rush era very well. We ambled through the antique stores and art galleries, mixing in a number of tasting rooms as we went. It took us most of the day to get from one end of the town to the other, a matter of 4 to 6 blocks. My favorite store, besides the tasting rooms, was one that sold only antique bathroom fittings. We enjoyed the museum as well.
We went to the Calaveras Big Trees State Park on the last day of the stay. We walked around the exhibit area for a while, refreshing our memories avout the difference between coastal redwoods and the sequoias of the sierras. We took the Lava Bluff Trail, about a 6 mike loop trail that takes you above the Stanislaus River to a point where you get a good look at the Central Valley below. The hike was pretty level and pretty easy. There were a number of places with good views down to the river. We picked one about halfway along the trail to stop for lunch. We hiked slowly, as I am wont to do, because there were a number of wildflowers to look at along the way. The day was also the warmest day of the trip, so we did not push it. The overlook was not that great, but the views along the trail, looking down to the river, were nice. We also played in the river for a while. When we got back, we also took a stroll through the grove in the main area before leaving for our motel. Back at the motel, we indulged in one of our other pastimes: reading out in the pleasant weather. That is something that is harder to do in Las Vegas in the summer.
The next day we went down the foothills and crossed the central valley to the Sacramento River. We made a quick stop at the Lodi Wine Tasting building. Lodi used to be a joke and the wines were primarily bulk wines. Now they are good wines that command respect and a higher price. The community of Lodi has grwon from a sleepy burg into a bedroom community connecting Sacramento and Stockton. We stocked up on wines to take home.
We were staying at the Ryde Hotel, which is a restored Art Deco hotel that was popular in the 1920's and 1930's. It served as a speakeasy during prohibition. The new owners restored the hotel to its former glory and also rent out space for weddings and other large parties. My brothers son was getting married on Saturday. It was a double wedding; the brides were sisters. All of my brothers and sisters were going to be there. We came in on Thursday, as did one brother and sister. My brother brought his boat. This started, for us, a tradition of spending a long weekend on the Sacramento River every summer. The hotel is perched on a levee really in the middle of nowhere. We visited with brothers and sisters and occasionally went out on a boat to cool off. The wedding, on Saturday, came off with little prolem. The worse problem was that it became windy during the outdoor ceremony. Since he reception was inside (for the most part) the mood was not disrupted. We returned the next day, making the long, monotonous drive down the Central Valley and across the desert to home.
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