Thursday, Oct. 11

We had only 90 miles to drive today, but WOW, what a 90 miles!  Floyd had told us to expect to make about 30 mph.  My Silverleaf gage showed we actually made 28.2 mph!  The roads were narrow, winding, and largely up or down.  We had one section where there was a sign warning of a 13% downgrade ahead, with a 15 mph curve at the bottom!  They were right!

I love the transmission retarder on our Foretravel!  It was a major factor in our decision to buy the unit.  Even on the 13% grade, I decelerated if I put the retarder on full!  I hardly used my service brakes during the whole drive.  Upon reaching camp, you could smell very hot brakes on just about all the other vehicles. 

We had more trouble getting here than we have had for a long time!  Upon reaching Placerville, we totally lost highway 49.  We finally, after driving our rig through some very narrow, tourist type 1850's streets, found a sign directing us to highway 50.  We knew this crossed 49 so were able to get back OK.

We access the campground by crossing the American River over a fairly long single lane bridge.  We need to check that it is empty before starting across.  There is not much clearance on either side of our rigs!

Our site here is nestled among many oak trees, right on the bank of the South Fork of the American River.  It is really nice!  For the first time this trip, my rooftop satellite antenna is totally blocked.  I had to set up my tripod.  We had a group over for the A's/Yankees playoff game in the evening.

Friday, Oct 12

We went over to the Marshall Gold Discovery State Park.  It turns out that we can see the replica of Sutter's Mill from our RV park.  It is just across the river.

This is where James Marshall discovered gold, starting the largest migration in the US - the 1849 gold rush.

Marshall and Sutter were partners in building a saw mill.  Just about the time the mill was approaching completion, Marshall picked up a small nugget from the discharge area of the mill.  He was not at all convinced it was gold, and had it checked out.  It was!  In the end, neither Marshall nor Sutter found much gold.  Both died essentially broke!

We looked through the museum in the park, where they announced a ranger talk at the sawmill at 12:00 and 2:00.  It was about 11:30, so after finishing our looking there, we headed over to the mill, just across the street.

This mill is a replica, built in 1967 about 500 feet from the original, on higher ground.  The original was operated until 1850, and destroyed by high flood waters in 1862.  It was totally lost for a period of many years.  When it was finally discovered in 1924 there were only mud locked, submerged timbers remaining.  Using the original plans discovered in Marshall's notebook, the one remaining photo of the original mill, and the dimensions of the recovered timbers, the replica was built.  There is no water to drive it, so it has been motorized for demonstration purposes.

We then drove around Coloma, finding Marshall's cabin, a monument built in his honor, and numerous interesting artifacts from the gold rush era.

We then headed in to Placerville (about 7 miles) to explore.

This evening, we were invited to Mary Alice's brother's home for a chili dinner.  He and his wife have a beautiful home.  They are still completing the landscaping, etc. as the house is only about a year and a half old.  From there we headed to the Olde Coloma Theatre where we saw a melodrama.  It was a lot of fun, and capped off a full, and enjoyable day.

We almost didn't make it as scheduled.  Margo, Ruth, Mary Alice, and Joan drove in Jim and Margo's truck to Amador (about an hour away) to do some antiquing.  Somehow, Margo's keyless entry clicker did not work and they could not start the truck.  They set off the alarm several times, but could not start it.  Finally they contacted Jim and Gordon who drove down and rescued the damsels in distress.  They pulled back into camp about 5 minutes before our scheduled departure for the evening's activities.  We slipped the schedule a little and all worked out just fine.

Saturday, Oct. 13

Dick and Marty Brown changed their plans and headed home this morning.  They have another outing coming up, and decided they need a little more time than if they stay the whole trip.  We now have 6 rigs and a passenger car, for a total of 13 people.

We were the last rig out of the campground this morning, but we still left about 20 minutes before our target time.  We only had 45 miles to go from Coloma to Grass Valley, but it was via highway 49 again.  As it turned out, the road was excellent most of the way.  We had about 4 miles as we approached Auburn that were very slow driving with numerous 15 and 20 mph curves, and lots of up and down.  The rest of the drive was fine.

The Nevada County Fairgrounds, where we are camping, is the most beautiful fairgrounds I have seen.  We are parked among many, many tall pine trees.  We originally had reservations for 9 rigs, then we lost 3.  I called a couple of days ago and changed to 6 rigs on our reservations.  Somehow, they wrote 5 on the paperwork, so we are crowded in a little tighter than we would have been otherwise, but we all fit.  The victory is that we do not lose the deposits for the 3 rigs that did not come!  We lost $40 for the 2 rigs that did not make it to Coloma!

Shirley hit us with a bombshell this afternoon.  There is an RV show in progress on the other side of the fairgrounds, and she and Ron went over to look as did a number of us.  She came back to camp and announced she had bought a new motorhome!  It is a 2000 Itasca, 24 foot class C.  It is being detailed for them and they will get it Tuesday.  This is very exciting for all of us!

I called my sister Barbara this afternoon.  She moved to a house about 11 miles from the campground a couple of months ago.  She attends the Grass Valley United Methodist Church, about 3 miles from here.  We will attend church with her there in the morning, hopefully go over to see her home tomorrow, and have her over here for a potluck tomorrow night (and to see our motorhome).

Sunday, Oct. 14

Seven of us attended the Grass Valley UMC this morning for their early, service.  We met Barbara there, then all went out to brunch afterwards.  We went back to camp for a while, then went out to Barbara's new house.  It is really nice.  The painter is partially done.  He still has all his equipment in place, with a number of windows masked off, numerous drop cloths around, and ladders everywhere.  For having been in only two months, she has accomplished a lot!

She then took us on a tour of the Lake Wildwood area, the gated community where she lives.  The area is heavily wooded with oak trees, some pine, and various other trees.  The center of the community is the privately owned lake.  It is a gorgeous area!

We, including Barbara, came back to camp for an evening potluck dinner.

We lose two more couples tomorrow.  The Lambs and the Boyces are heading for home.  The campout will officially end the following day, when we all head our separate ways.

Monday, Oct. 15

As Barbara has only been in the area for about 2 months, she decided that she needs to be a tourist and learn the area.  She showed up, as planned, and we headed over to the Empire Mine State Historic Park.  This mine was (is) huge!  It consists of a series of many, many slant shafts, connecting with a huge network of side tunnels.  There are a few vertical shafts.  In all, there are 367 miles of tunnels under about 5 square miles of surface.  Some of the shafts are over 11,000 feet long, angling down to almost a mile below the surface.

In 1852, many small mine claims were bought to consolidate them into a major mining operation.  The ownership changed a number of times during the first years.  Finally financier William Bourn gained a controlling interest and the mine prospered.  Its performance suffered on his death and finally one of his sons took over the mine and made it profitable again.  During the Great Depression, the area barely was affected.  The mine was in full operation and was very profitable.  They say the depression is something the miners only read about.

During the operation of the mine, pumping the ground water out of the mine was a major problem.  They pumped about a million gallons a day to keep the shafts dry.  During the latter days of operation, they dammed off the main shafts at several levels so they could more easily pump certain levels dry. 

Operation continued until World War II, when non-essential industries like gold mining were shut down.  The mine re-opened in 1945, but never really prospered again due to high costs of the extraction, and the low cost of gold.  It finally shut down permanently in 1967, when the pumps were shut down, and the tunnels filled to within 180 feet of the surface, the normal ground water level.  In all, during its operation, over 2 billion dollars of gold (at today's prices) were removed.  This amount of gold would fit in a seven foot cube!

One of the more interesting displays was a 1 inch = 80 feet 3d scale model of the mine tunnels.  This was built with various colored wires supported by a tubing framework.  During the operation of the mine, this model was kept "top secret".  Only very high officials and certain engineers were allowed access to it, or even knowledge of its existence.

After touring the visitor center, we went around the grounds.  They are beautiful, with many large lawns and various buildings.  Mr. Bourne had a "cottage" on the property.  This was a stone house with formal gardens behind it, and a large lawn with a couple of fountains in the front.  There were several other very nice buildings in this area. 

We then went to the mine operation area.  Here was a large stone building housing the main offices and the mine safety office.  Across the way were several buildings housing the carpentry shop, the blacksmith shop, the tool sharpening shop, and the electrical shop.  There was also the entrance to the main shaft of the mine.  We were allowed to descend about 20 or 30 steps into the mine.  We could then look down the shaft several hundred more feet, until the light levels prevented seeing any further.

Barbara had to get home to supervise her workers, so Betty and I went to the North Star Mine Museum this afternoon.  This museum had displays of most of the mining hardware and utensils.  A major feature was the Pelton water wheel, which produces large amounts of power by directing a jet of high pressure water at buckets on the periphery of the wheel.  Various forms of these water wheels produced thousands of horsepower.

Tonight, Betty and I met Ann and Rick, Betty's niece and her husband, for dinner in Nevada City.  They live in Colfax, only a few miles from here.  It was great to be able to see them and get caught up on the happenings of all the family members.

We leave here in the morning, and head for the Carson City, NV area.