Spent a couple of days cruising around Placer, Amador and Calaveras counties, the Sierra foothills area known as “Gold Country” in California.

Placerville hosts a serious homeless encampment; first time I’ve seen a camp that bags its trash and sets it out for collection. Judging by the size of the trash-bag mound, it’s been a long time since anybody came to collect. 

All the big retailers seem to be doing brisk business. The historic downtown areas and just-outside-of-town strip malls show/hide empty storefronts.

We passed a closed-up store with a sign ”Carole’s Chocolate Lounge.”  The images conjured may propel the only entrepreneurial aspiration I need going forward.

Lotta Trump signage here. I wonder if the CA Republicans paid for all the flashy banners along the road. Not many people wear masks.

I had not watched any TV since the last real (2019) baseball season. The commercials seem obsessed with making home, clothes, cars and pets smell good.

My unwillingness to be interrupted constantly while viewing a show made for short night of TV.  So pleased to see a pregnant weather lady!

We hiked around to a few prospecting sites on the Silver Fork of the American River, the Mokelumne River, Woods Creek, and the Stanislaus River. All refreshingly cold and clear. Just a fleck of gold for the effort.

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Route 49 – a two-lane blacktop connecting the towns of Placerville and Sonora – is as smooth as a dance floor.  However, the tiny towns strewn along it evidently have barely enough people to bother with a main street or even an official building in decent repair. A few have gone ‘agri-burb’ with Tractor Supply Depots and auto parts stores and Subway, McD’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and Starbucks – all with drive through service.

The Railtown 1897 State Historical Park was a sweet find on a day when virtually no one else showed up.  Dozens of vintage rail cars and locomotives, most made ‘back East’ and shipped to California. It’s the oldest continually operating rail roundhouse in the States. Thousands of iron parts stacked about – relics of a time when transport was huge and heavy.

Resting tonight near Jackass Hill, where a depressed Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain took refuge with some unusual friends during his sojourn of escape in Calaveras County.    

Memorable places:

Pope’s Beach on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. Copses of pine trees grow across the beach almost to the water’s edge.  Sandy bottom as far as I could see.

Route 50 into S. Lake Tahoe – the muscular rock faces take my breath away.

Knight’s Ferry, empty like a set from a post-apocalypse film;

The ice cream store Yummie Ha Ha in Angel’s Camp;

Route 108 between Sonora and Oakdale – rolling hills of black oaks pleasingly socially distanced amid tawny dry-grass meadows, a landscape that makes me feel unreasonable smitten. As if the land itself could be my lover.

The weeds and grasses have gone frowzy, effortlessly scattering their seeds in the breeze. A place not anything like Oakland, tawdry with trash and graffiti.

Aimless on the road, drifting through the day – what could be more golden?