After a couple days, it was hard to leave “Rockwood,” our quirky Lake Tahoe cabin. But we had a long day of traveling ahead of us, so we packed up the car and left before ten o’clock. Crossing the Sierra before June is not always easy because many of the roads are either routinely closed for the whole winter or may be closed with little notice if it looks like there may be a storm. Fortunately, the weather was cooperative with us, and we crossed the mountains on highway 88, known in our fourth grade history books as the Kit Carson Pass. Most of the Sierra Nevada has double peaks, that is, there is one set of peaks on the east side, another on the west side, and a small valley in the middle. The Carson Pass is a good example of this, and there is even a lake in the valley between the two peaks.
While it was still winter on the top of the mountains, as we descended into the foothills it turned into Spring. Our first stop was in Jackson, one of the most important towns in this area during the Gold Rush. It’s still a significant settlement and it is the administrative headquarters of Amador County. It has a number of historic buildings in its center, but generally we found it less than charming. We passed one building under construction, and they had painted a mural in front, perhaps to discourage graffiti.
After a short lunch, we continued down Highway 49 toward Columbia. We stopped a few times along the way. Perhaps the most interesting of these stops was in Mokelumne Hill, at one time the biggest town in Calaveras County.
One of the interesting things about this town was that while many of the buildings have been restored, other parts of it are in ruins. It’s almost as if Bodie and Virginia City had been combined, yet with virtually no tourists in sight.
There was an old town hall there which is still occasionally used for films an concerts. John can never resist a box office!
We also went through towns like San Andreas and Angels Camp, but nothing seemed particularly memorable to us there despite any historical significance. The town of Columbia, however, in Tuolumne County, is both historic and picturesque.
This town is a state historic park. There are no cars in the center, and everything has been preserved and reconstructed to show what it was like to live in this area during the 1850’s.
Columbia was the site of a great deal of hydraulic mining. For those who only vaguely remember their fourth grade history, this was the destructive practice of blasting away entire mountainsides with hoses to uncover quartz veins and gold. There are still significant areas of the Gold Rush area where normal vegetation cannot grow because there is still little soil. Some of the equipment used for this is on display.
Our accommodations for the night are at the Columbia Gem Motel. There is nothing special about this place except they take dogs and have peculiar taste is decorating the motel office.
Columbia is the home for the Sierra Repertory Theatre. So, instead of passing the evening watching reruns of 30 Rock, John and I went to see The Rainmaker. I was only vaguely familiar with the play, but John knew it pretty well. Apparently there is a movie version of it from the 1950’s with Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster. It’s all about some family living somewhere on the southern Great Plains during a drought. They have a smart but plain daughter who looks like she will never get married because she is too independent. Then a mysterious stranger comes into town, and, you guessed it, changes the way they look at themselves.
Tomorrow, we head off for home.
