Hi there everyone,
We've been away for awhile but we have embarked upon a new, albeit quick adventure. We are spending a week visiting the many interesting towns in the Sierra foothills that sprung up during the California Gold Rush Era of 1849.
Our first stop takes us to Angels Camp, CA. We are staying at the Angels Camp RV Resort. It is a large park that has accommodations for all manner of RV, several tent sites and even some cabins. There are two distinct parts to this park, one having been added more recently as part of an expansion effort. That side is more densely spaced and is devoid of mature trees. Fortunately for us, we are staying on the original side where we have some trees to offer us some welcome shade on this warm 90 degree summer day.
The drive here from our home in Martinez was only about 125 miles away. We headed straight out California State Route 4, which winds its way east through the towns of Pittsburg and Antioch, where it narrows to a two lane byway that winds through the sprawling Sacramento River delta. There are several bridges that must be navigated when going through this section that heads into the larger town of Stockton. Some of these bridges are very narrow. It was a little nerve racking traversing some of these bridges with large semi-trailers coming in the other direction. At one point we were so close, we narrowly missed clipping mirrors with the oncoming rig, but we did clip our right hand mirror on the bridge support. Fortunately, the mirrors are designed to fold away, so no serious damage. Once we got past Stockton, CA 4 begins to make its way up the Sierra foothills. The road is narrow in parts and there is some serious traffic from lumber trucks coming down from the foothills making their way towards Stockton. We took it slow and made it to Angels Camp Safely.
We took a quick jaunt through the town of Angels Camp, making our way to the Visitor Center, where we were met by a very friendly and helpful docent. We were disappointed to hear that most of the shops in the historic old town section were closed on Tuesday and Wednesday (which happens to be when we arrived). Nevertheless, we strolled among the original and historic buildings on what was once one of the busiest trading posts serving miners during the California Gold Rush.
One of things this town is famous for is the annual Calaveras Jumping Frog contest. This event memorializes the humorous story penned by Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens. The town has an interesting display that shares the history of how the famous story came to be. This account was certainly more colorful and different than any I had heard before about Mark Twain. The story they tell suggests that Samuel Clemens in 1869 was trying to evade capture by law enforcement officers in SF for helping a friend of his jump bail that had been arrested for seriously injuring someone in a bar room brawl. Samuel was hiding out in a ramshackle shack with some family of the friend he had help escape jail. This was a very low point in Clemen’s life. He had failed as a gold miner, been fired as a steam boat pilot and now was in trouble with the law. It is said he even contemplated suicide, placing a pistol to his own head but not having the fortitude to pull the trigger. While hiding out in the Sierra foot hills he would frequent the bar in a hotel/saloon in Angels Camp. It was there that he heard a tall tale about the amazing jumping frogs of Calaveras County. He crafted a short story that was picked up in the New Yorker Magazine. Because he was evading law enforcement, he published it under the name of Mark Twain. And as the say....the rest is history. Shortly after that, he became a traveling reporter for a large publication and he set off as one of the earliest journalists to visit the exotic Sandwich Islands - now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
Tomorrow, our plan is to wake up early and head up to the Calaveras Big Trees State park near the gold mining town of Arnold. It is said that this State Park has a more amazing grove of giant redwoods than can be found in Yosemite, Sequoia or Kings Canyon national parks. We look forward to hiking and exploring.