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Our third trip of the summer was planned to provide an opportunity to spend some time with Willard and Tiffany, - it had been 14 months since we last visited with them. Also on the return trip home we stopped off in Mountain Home, Id. to pickup Harry C. and the crystals he had dug this summer.
Our destination was the California Gold Country - the area famous for the 1849 gold rush. Angels Camp, a community of about 3,200, where we stayed, is also famous for being the location where Mark Twain wrote "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Since gold mining ended in the area in about 1918, an annual spring festival to establish the World Champion Jumping Frog and other tourists activity is what has kept Angels Camp and surrounding mining towns alive. The sidewalks of Main Street in Angels Camp are adorned with plaques to recognize the yearly jumping frog champion - much like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The second oldest Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S. is also found in Angels Camp - so, the gold miners did have some religious convictions!
Being the remnants of a 19th century mining town, Angels Camp has a lot of preserved sites marked to designate where mines were and a Museum of late 19th and early 20th century mining equipment and transportation items. The Museum also has a great video (almost an hour long) about the jumping frog tradition. There are also several mines and caverns in the area that are major tourist attractions. Willard and Harry took a tour of Mercer Cavern. The prospect of 16 stories worth of steep stairs / ladders to access the cavern caused Tiffany and Willardene to decline to make the descent. (Tiffany was wearing an inflated boot due to having broken a bone in her right foot, thus seriously limiting her mobility.)
Willardene's birthday (Aug. 18th) was celebrated with a day trip to Yosemite National Park - about 100 miles southeast of Angels Camp. It had taken 18 years for Harry and Willardene to achieve their plans to visit Yosemite - the original plans were set aside due to the termination of the SR-71 program that Harry had worked in during the years we lived in California. The drive through Yosemite was beautiful, but the number of visitors would certainly make one question the impact of high gas prices on vacation travel!
Big Trees State Park, located about 30 miles from Angels Camp, is one of three or four preserves established to protect groves of the giant sequoia trees. The best way to enjoy this type park is walking the numerous trails. While we didn't walk but part of one trail, it was a little much for Tiffany and she spent the next day confined to the condo to recover. The giant trees - some believed to be upward of 3,000 years old - are a grand sight to behold.
On the way to Angels Camp, we stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats to take a picture or two. We accessed Angels Camp via California State Highway 4, which crosses Ebbetts pass - a steep, narrow, winding road that is not even open in the winter. It was a drive to remember! And we remembered it well enough to return a different way - going around the south end of Lake Tahoe and enjoying the sight of that beautiful lake. Again, high gas prices aren't impacting travel in that area as the traffic in South Lake Tahoe was unbelievable!
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previous trip page - click here