Gold Country

For Dan's birthday this past weekend I surprised him with a weekend get-away to California Gold Country. About 2.5 hours west of us is the California "motherload" where millions of dollars in gold was mined from the hillsides and where many people insist millions more exist. I had done a little bit of digging around on-line and found a few possible sites for panning and so we set out early Saturday morning to find gold (or at least go exploring)!

We headed to Mokehulmne River just outside of the "town" of Electra, CA. The river was great ... awesome rocks along the shore, cool water to wade in, and even huge crawdads. So did we strike it rich in this pretty river .... nope, not even a speckle of gold. We found a few pieces of what might be copper and an old bullet but that was it.

After a picnic lunch we decided it was time to move onto different endeavors and we headed to the huge Ironstone Vineyard just a few miles away. With over 1000 acres it seemed this place had a little bit of everything including, most importantly, lots of wine tasting. We tried a bunch and mutually agreed that we still haven't quite found the allure of wine but it was a good place to relax after our busy morning.

For the night we stayed at a cute B&B in the town of Columbia, CA. This whole town was turned into a State Historic Park to reflect the days of the gold rush and is filled with cute shops, stagecoaches, and museums. Across from our B&B was an old school house that just happened to be having a "Back to School Night: 1861" event that evening. The whole event was adorable ... little kids dressed up in old-fashioned clothes, mock classes, and even homemade ice-cream!

Sunday was another full day of exploring the many small mining towns around the area. We visited Sonora, Jamestown, and Chinese Camp. We tried to find more water for a little bit more panning but being the dry season we were out of luck. Finally we decided to call it a day and head home.

As we were driving back through Palo Alto we stumbled upon the Palo Alto Fine Arts Festival. We stopped by for a quick walk through and gawked at what all the talented people can do. One of the coolest things was they had a whole street filled with chalk drawings. These pieces of art in the middle of the street looked like professional paintings ... I wish I could do that! Now that it is Monday and we're both back at work I can't help wishing we were still up in the hills exploring but we'll just have to start planning our next get-away.