Ashland, Oregon, Sutter Gold Mine,
Yosemite National Park, Giant Sequoia Trees

Summer Vacation 04 - page 3

When we arrived at the beach house we had rented, we found the cleaning lady still there. It seems the previous occupants had pretty much trashed the place. Lots of spots on carpet, a broken futon, and good blankets had been used on the beach, etc. This is the first time we have rented a vacation home, so we didn't really know what to expect other than the description we had been given and a couple of pictures that were on the internet. I won't go so far as to say that we would never do it again; but now we know what to ask in advance. This place was too rustic and worn for my taste, although my brother, who joined us for a few days, thought it was typical. It was on the ocean, which was the number one criteria in searching for a place. The weather was pretty typical for the Oregon coast – foggy and cloudy most mornings, with some sun later in the day. We did have a couple of rainy days and the temperature was in the 60's during the day.
My brother and his family joined us at the beach house for a few days. If anything, they enjoyed it more that we did. His wife and daughter spent a lot of time walking on the beach, searching for seashells and pretty rocks, etc. We built a fire on the beach one night and made s'mores, which Dave has never had before. Guess his education was lacking in that regard.
After the cool weather of the coast, we head inland and go south for the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. We met some friends here and went to plays, had good food, and shopped till we dropped. Well, the guys did play golf one day. The negative here was that the temperature was in the high 90's, which they say is unusual. We did have a good time, though.

Back down into California we go, heading toward the gold country and Yosemite . As long as we are on a highway like I5, the travel goes much faster. Our first stop is in Placerville, which has a gold mine and the oldest hardware store in the state. The nickname for Placerville is “Hang town” – I'll let you guess why. The Gold Bug Goldmine was first worked in 1888. A half-hour walking tour with an audio cassette tells all about it. It is smaller than some mines we've seen. This area also has a lot of old stores, many with antiques.

Just north of Jackson is the Sutter Gold Mine. This mine is huge compared to others we've seen. You take a vehicle down into the mine and walk a ways inside. This is a modern mine and was worked in the 1980's until the price of gold dropped so much that it wasn't profitable to continue. There has been more than 7 million ounces of gold removed here and a lot more just waiting for the price to go up.

Inside the gold mine.

Heading south on State Road 49 - Sutter Creek, Jackson and Groveland are all typical little western towns. Many stores/shops are authentic, like the Iron Door Saloon where we had dinner. It dates from 1850's and is said to be one of California 's first watering holes. From here it is a short drive to the entrance of Yosemite National Park .

Yosemite is very large – several miles in and out. Lots and lots of trees and mountains with sheared off looking rock. There are a few mountain streams and waterfalls. Yosemite Falls was dried up. Some things can only be seen by hiking on the miles of trails. You can also rent bikes or just drive around. There are free shuttles that cover most of the paved roads, and stop several places at parking lots, visitor centers, nature areas, etc. There are several large areas where trees have been burned by forest fires. That seemed kind of an odd thing to see. The park overall is huge with roads only to a small portion of the area. One of the best things to see is the movie about the park. After taking lots of pictures, we call it a day and head towards Fish Camp just outside the south entrance to the park.

Our visit to Yosemite started out with a negative experience. We had breakfast at the restaurant next to our motel, called Buck Meadows. It's about 12 miles from the west entrance. It is owned by the motel (which was OK, nothing fancy) and leased out to a woman from Thailand . We skipped it for dinner as we don't like Thai food, but for breakfast it was the only option. The manager/cook's teen daughter was the waitress. Both of them had an attitude problem, to put it mildly. There were several signs around that said they can refuse service to anyone, plus a sign that said there was a $1 charge for using the restroom if you weren't a customer. First I asked for one egg scrambled. She said ‘we can't do that because most of the egg sticks to the pan'. I told her if you used a non-stick pan and some butter it shouldn't do that. She argued about it. So I asked for the egg over and well done. When it came it was runny inside and not hard. I also got pancakes, and the only syrup was one marked ‘sugar free'. When I asked for some regular syrup we were told that ‘that is regular syrup, we just mark it that way because nobody can tell the difference.' Soon after that the manager came out and asked if everything was OK. We said no, and they started to argue with us, saying that I threw the menu at the girl and I, as an adult, should set a better example (she was only about a foot away, so I don't know how I could have done this). I was told if I wanted my egg hard I should have told them to break the yoke. I informed her that I could make it hard without breaking the yolk, and she said very sarcastically that I must be a better cook than her. Of course we agreed with her. I told her if she was running a business the customer is always right, and she wasn't going to be in business long. I can't repeat everything that was said, but they followed us out the door, yelling at us. When we complained to the desk clerk at the motel, we were told they've had other complaints. Once they ran outside after a customer and was yelling for a tip, and almost got into a fight over it. Avoid this place at all costs, if you are ever in the area

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Our last important stop on this trip was Sequoia National Park/Monument. Here we see the oldest living thing (Gen. Sherman Tree) as well as other trees large enough to walk through and drive through.

Next we're headed home. I am very stiff from sitting in the car so much. We did, however, miss the 115 degree temperatures at home this summer. That was the goal!

 

Sequoia National Park

 

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